You Can Take The Man Out The Hood...

The famous African-American proverb, "you can take the man out the hood, but you can't take the hood out of the man", rings true when the young and rich, try to hold onto a past. In this episode, the Ellises discuss what makes men (and women) mature, and the answer ain't money. Dead ass.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Money does not make you mature.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
M that's a fact. And raising four black young men,
I'm hypersensitive about the things that they're watching and exposed
to and possibly overexposed to. So we have to put
parenting on a hundred All right, dead asss Hey, I'm

(00:26):
Kadeen and I'm Devout and we're the Ellis's.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
You may know us from posting funny videos with our.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Boys and reading each other publicly as a form of therapy. Wait,
I make you need therapy most days.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
And one more important thing to mention, we're married.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Yes, sir, we are.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
We created this podcast to open dialogue about some of
li's most taboo topics.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Things most folks don't want to talk about.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Through the lens of a millennial married couple. Dead ass
is a term that we say every day.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
So when we say dead ass, we're actually saying facts
one hundred, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
We about to take pilot off to our whole new level.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Dead ass starts right now.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
So, as you guys know, I play in the NFL
for four years.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
During that time, I met a lot of interesting characters.
Being in an NFL locker room is very different. During
the time when I was there, I happened to play
with a lot of men who made a lot of
money because the Detroit Lions were always drafting extremely high because.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
They lost a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
So you're in the locker room with a ton of
first round draft picks. And during that time, I remember
seeing a lot of young men who after doing two
to three years in college. I say two to three
years because if you read short and that you did
two years or you played three years straight as a freshman,
you're really only twenty one and you're signing deals upwards

(01:58):
of twenty million dollars guaranteed as a top ten draft
pick in the NFL. And I watched a lot of
young men do some destructive things during that time.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
And I just watched all of the chatter of so
many people. You're like, wow, they do that.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
He's making money out of you do it making money,
And it made me realize it doesn't matter if you
give an immature twenty one, twenty two year old a
dollar or a million dollars, they gonna do something fucked
up with it.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
That's a fact.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
And I watched it firsthand.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
I don't know what they want for me It's like
the more money we cover across the problem we see. Now,
what's the next part? Who hot? Oh?

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Oh, that's I'm thinking. I'm thinking Diddy's part of my back.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Who hot? Who not tell me who set out in
the stores?

Speaker 1 (02:57):
You're telling me? Whoop? Who capped the blue drop? Jews got?
Who mostly knows s pimp?

Speaker 2 (03:04):
You know anything changed with my lips?

Speaker 3 (03:06):
Can't stop to your name on the black guarantee you yourself?
Whn't believe in hall the world, the double up.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
We don't play around bad down didn't know me.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
No one they know me.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Now I'm the young nigga with the goldens down.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Can't can hold me? Dad e sciom me to the game.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
Do this.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
All right?

Speaker 3 (03:30):
All right, shout out all the world, Diddy.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Sometimes we be aging ourselves like we.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Do because I don't even remember the words no more.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
That's a fact. You know. We got a It's not
like riding a bike like they said it would be. Yes,
remember these song lyrics. All right, we're talking about what
makes a mature man, and I don't know the least
you have to tell us the vow. Let's pay some
bills and come back and we'll talk we'll talk some
current events stuff. All right, we're back. Yes, story time,

(04:05):
you're talking about the characters that you met in the NFL,
and particularly this episode, we will be talking about the
Jahn Morant situation going on, and that's been in the
news lately about some of the some saying immature decisions
that he's been making, and what we're thinking is behind
the this is driving force behind those types of decisions
just in general. So you can speak to this as

(04:26):
a male, as an athlete formerly, and me particularly chiming
in as a mom raising for boys.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
Right, there's a lot to unpack here, right, And the
first thing I want to unpack is this idea that
John Morant, because he went to a private school and
grew up with both his parents, a lot of people
question his blackness. Remember we talked about this, like your
blackness has to be associated with struggle, because if you
didn't struggle at a certain part in life, then you're not.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Really that How how authentic is your story really?

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Right?

Speaker 3 (04:57):
Or you're not hood if you didn't grow up in
a different type of environment.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
Now here's the truth, right.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
Being in the streets and proximity to the streets is
two different things right from what we know, I don't
know much about John Moran's life. I don't I know
he grew up with both of his parents. His dad
is clearly in his life because he's at every game.
They said he went to private school. Let me tell
you something about going to private school. When I was
at poly Prep. When I retired from the NFL, I
coached at poly Prep for two years. I watched as

(05:26):
they recruited young kids from the inner cities to go
to poly Prep, but they didn't live around poly Prep.
And the reason why I say that is because all
these people who are saying, oh, he went to private school,
he not hood understand this. Every year poly Prep we
recruited five elite athletes who were on scholarship. Poly Prep
was a forty thousand dollars a year school, and a

(05:46):
part of going to this school and playing football for
the school was that they were going to pay because
your parents couldn't afford give you a better opportunity.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
So they were busting them into Dyker Heights.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
Pretty much busting them into Dyker Heights, but they did
not live in Dyker Heights, and a lot of these
young men were not from Dyker heights. So this idea
that since you go to a private school, your life
wasn't rough, it's just a facade. It's fake and people
are just talking out their ass. That's number one. Number two,
the idea that you live in a private house means
that you can't be street.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
Another fake, another facade.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
Because I grew up in Canarsi, the flaws right, pop
Smoke grew up in Canarsi and the flaws.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
I grew up with both my parents, right.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
I still had to go from Canarsi all the way
to Marine Park to go to school, which means I
had to get on that school bus and I had
to travel on that Not school, I had to go
on a city bus, and I had to travel on
the B eighty two forty five minutes every morning by myself.
And I was doing that from the time I was
thirteen years old. My brother went to roy Age Man
He's been traveling on the bus on his own since

(06:46):
he was ten years old. The things you learn on
that bus ride have nothing to do with where you
reside at night. The things you do during the day
and where you frequent have nothing to do with where
you reside at night. The idea that because Jamar grew
up in a private house. I went to a private school,
and can't be street is a facade. Lastly, the idea
that you grew up with both your parents means that

(07:08):
you cannot be hood is a facade. I grew up
with both my parents. I know plenty of people who
grew up with both their parents. You know what both
their parents did all day work and you know where
them kids were in the streets, in the streets. And
it wasn't because yes, and it wasn't because their parents
weren't good people. It wasn't because their parents weren't giving
them a good opportunity. But if you grew up like

(07:31):
I grew up in Brooklyn, yeah, you may grow up
in a private house with both your parents in Brooklyn,
but from eight o'clock in the morning till six pm,
sometimes seven pm, if your parents worked like my parents, you.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Were on your own lifesses.

Speaker 3 (07:45):
And my parents told me, you come straight from home,
you in school, You come straight from school, you go inside,
you go home.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
You know what I did, went straight from school to
the street.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
I was with my peoples, I was with my boys,
We was playing, I was outside, I was.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
Doing all sorts getting home by any means necessary, all
of us friendly, Oh this that, And.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
We grew up during a time when there were no
cell phones and there was no social media, there was
no technology to track you. So this idea that Jama
rent because of all these things we know about his
life can't be street is fake.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
That's not real.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
There are plenty of people who grew up in that
type of environment who have a lot more street sense
in savvy than other people who you proclaim grew up
in certain areas. For example, I have a homegirl grew
up in the projects, never been outside. You want to
know why her single mom told her black ass she
could not go outside. And this young lady, I don't
want to say her name, is probably one of the

(08:41):
most sheltered people. And she grew up in the projects
because her mom made a choice to keep her away
from all the elements outside of her. And if you
would look at her, and you look at the way
I grew up, I was in the street, made way
more than her. I grew up in the church, in
a dual family, dual parent household, in a private home,
with every opportunity to be successful.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
When I was still in the street because I was.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
Just, what is the desire to have that street, to
be in the mix? Is it just something growing up?
You feel like you're missing something because you know me,
I grew up. Also, yeah, you go to Gary Shelter
like I'm not going past my front gate, go to school,
get picked up, dropped off like there was no room
for me really to be you know, go astray. So
what is the desire to be in the street.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
I don't.

Speaker 3 (09:26):
I don't think it's a desire. I think it's like,
what else are you gonna do? You're you know, you
want to spend time with your friends. As a child,
what is more important than you than your friends?

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Nothing?

Speaker 3 (09:35):
Nothing is more important. If all of my friends are outside,
then I'm going outside. And my parents gave my brother
and I and my sisters were enough latitude to navigate
the streets on our own.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
So I learned how to use tokens. This is before
metro card.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
I learned how to use tokens and travel on the
train and the bus from the time I was very
very young. My aunt Debbie used to take me and
my cousin DeVaughn on the train from as young as
five and six years old, and when I got old
enough to travel on my own, which is people say
times are different now, but they really aren't that different.
I was traveling on the city bus from ten double digits.

(10:11):
Was like, okay, double digits, you can traveling on. You
know how to get here, you know how to read
the map. So my environment in my house were two
different things. My house and where I lived was one thing.
But my environment and where I grew up was in
Flatbush between Church. I grew up between the streets of
Church and I would say King's Highway, that whole area

(10:34):
between Nasareth Regional High School, Erasmus High School, clar Salem
Missionary Baptist Church, Tennis Court. That was all of my neighborhood.
That's why I spent most of my time see and.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
My mother would have never And now at that point
I was living in Kannarsi, which was known to be
the private houses in Knarsi. So that's where you know,
your hardworking middle class you know Brooklyn Iights would be.
But then what about this conflict that you've mentioned recently
with wanting to first off, we've moved our children from there, yes,

(11:08):
and now we're you know, in the suburbs of Atlanta,
but then also wanting your kids to have that street edge,
So like, why is that still a thing that you
need to have, particularly as a male.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
It's a good question. To me.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
It wasn't so much about street edge. It was more
about awareness. I want I want my sons to know
how to navigate the world. Okay, I learned how to
navigate the world through the street. Imagine being ten years
old and you get lost on the subway, you know.
Imagine being ten years old and you lose your wallet.
You have no money, but you have to get home.

(11:45):
You find ways, you know, you learn how to maneuver
and pivot, and you learn how not to be scared
because you've dealt with so much at a young age.
I don't want to coddle my son so much that
when they get out in the world and I'm not
there for the first time, they don't know how.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
To move walking around looking like target. Yes, yes, that
kind of sense.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:02):
And when I think about the whole John Morant situation,
here's another aspect that people don't think about. I grew
up in Brooklyn. I have tons of friends who do
not live the same type of life I live. And
when I mean life. I'm talking about the legal life
that I live. They have a different type of life.
And when you're twenty two and you have that group

(12:25):
of friends that's still around you, and now you're the
one that's in the spotlight. Those behaviors that you practiced
when you were in high school in early college, those
don't stop just because you're making millions of dollars. You
know what happens, there's just now a greater spotlight on you.
So when people are saying, how come he you know
he's worth one hundred million dollars, why don't he make
better decisions? I think we need to give this young

(12:48):
man grace to learn how to make better decisions because
he's learning how to do it in real time with
a lot of people watching him. Now, that doesn't excuse
his behavior, right, for example, going on Live with a pistol. Right,
people are saying, allegedly, but it was him showing a
pistol on his live, him getting into physical altercations with kids,

(13:09):
or quote unquote pulling out pistols allegedly. The only reason
why I say I can say allegedly is because I
wasn't there and there's no proof, And I think it's
an open case, so whatever. So I don't want to
say this would happen. But what I'm saying is is
these situations and stuff like this happen all the time,
and we don't have any Like the outside world doesn't
see these things happening. But when you have someone who's

(13:30):
worth a hundred million dollars and the spotlight is always
on him and he makes the same decisions he's been
making his whole life and it's been successful making these decisions,
you can't automatically say now, well, why don't you stop
this behavior.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
You're worth a hundred million dollars.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
He has to learn that, and sometimes learning that comes
with consequences, which means like now he gets in trouble,
gets suspended from the team for two days, has to
go work on some things with his mental health. Like
that's learning during the process. I just want us as
people to give him grace and don't write him off

(14:02):
as just another stupid athlete or make fun of the
fact that, well, he grew up with both his parents.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
Why is he trying to act tough?

Speaker 2 (14:08):
So essentially he's making mistakes that all twenty one year
old makes. Twenty one year olds make but he's on
the spotlight and be has the money.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
Hey, we went to college together. You've seen a decision
some of my friends made in college.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
Absolutely with a lot less to lose, you know what
I'm saying, right, or more in some situations because it's like, man,
this is my only chance to get out, I'm on
scholarship if I messed this up, and we've seen so
many cases like more so, where are the people who
are walking him through, for example, the high school process,

(14:40):
the draft process, Like when that essentially is over and
now he's a quote unquote grown man making his own money,
making male decisions, does he still have that team of
people who are there to support him and make sure
that he's on the straight and narrow or that they
just just kind of drop off once he makes that
because they have handlers and people who see them through
this entire process. And then is it that he's left

(15:02):
to his own devices once I'm saying he as a
job like the athlete.

Speaker 3 (15:06):
I'm glad you asked that question, because this is part
of being an athlete that or even a young entertainer
that people don't see when you're a prodigy, right and
you're the person everyone expects is going to be the
one to make it out right. When you're making poor
decisions throughout your pre adolescent years, then your adolescent years,
then in high school when you're making these poor decisions,
a lot of times you get coddled and people cover

(15:27):
up for you, so you really don't learn and understand
consequences because you make a poor decision or you do
something dumb and then someone else out of know where
it comes up.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
We got to protect so and so on. Let's sweep
this under the rod. Let's make this okay.

Speaker 3 (15:40):
So now that person is learning that, oh, I can
pretty much do what I want, or it's not that
big of a deal. If they made it go away,
it's not that big of a deal. So what they
do repeat the behavior, and then the higher you get
in that level, like they'll cover for you in junior
high school. Oh, but now you're being recruited to go
one of the top high schools, or now they're going
to cover for you in the high school, especially if
you go to one of these private schools. A lot

(16:02):
of times they will cover for and I'm not just
talking about athletes.

Speaker 1 (16:05):
I worked at poly Prep.

Speaker 3 (16:07):
If you have someone who's generating, generating resources and bringing
funds to a school.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
For everybody, they're going to cover for you.

Speaker 3 (16:15):
Case in point, at poly Prep, I worked with some
entertainers who are world renowned their children. Their children were
on the football team, and I watched those young men
who are not black, who came from affluent families, who
came from generations of money, make poor decisions. And you
know what happened When they made poor decisions, someone covered
for them. Had nothing to do with being black. These

(16:37):
people were white and rich and they covered for them.
But the school covered because their parents bringing me resources.
Right when you're an athlete and they're paying for your
tuishing to go to these schools, but also the boosters
are generating, we're bringing money to the program into the school,
the school is going to cover for you. So when
you had make a poor decision in high school and

(16:59):
they cover for you, then you get to college and
you're the elite athlete in college and you make another
poor decision, and now they cover for you because so
many other people outside of you are invested in your
success because your success means they gain access.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
To resources and funds.

Speaker 3 (17:15):
It's easy to understand how a young person can then
become an adult, and now there's no one here to
buffer for you because you're an adult and you have
a phone and you're doing the same things you did,
But now the whole world is condemning you, and people
think twenty three is grown, twenty three is.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
A baby baby, a baby baby.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
You're making poor decisions.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
Now everyone's like, oh, he got to do better. Where's
his dad, where's this person. It's a process. Let this
young man go through the process and learn, and that
does not excuse his behavior, because his behavior, if he's
done what they're saying he did, is inexcusable.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
For sure. It's funny you say twenty three is still
a baby, which, of course know that. Think about us
at twenty three, we thought we had everything figured out, okay,
And you've said it before. In your twenties, you think
you know everything.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
Oh, the same thing. From fifteen to twenty, you think
you know everything right. From twenty to twenty five, you
know you know everything. From twenty five to thirty you
start to realize, like, wait a minute.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
With the trembling voice, I didn't know shit.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
And then you spend all of your thirties trying to
fix all of the mistakes you made. I said that
about myself all the time, Like I look back at
some of the stuff I did in my twenties and
I'm like, dang, I did that.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
I thought like that when we look at people who
are twenty something year old, now we're just like y'all
trying to do what? Like how did we? I know
that's how our family was looking at us, like y'all
are crazy, Like ain't you trying to move all the
way to Detroit to follow your man and you're twenty
two years old? Like, girl, what are you doing? But
it's funny because a study commissioned by Nickelodeon UK found
that men don't reach maturity until forty three. I mean,

(18:58):
do you think that's accurate or not? I mean, I mean,
be a little immature.

Speaker 3 (19:02):
I could be a little immature at times, you know
what I'm saying, So.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
All in the fun but I mean, you know that's
case the case because you did have a certain level
of maturity though with a lot of other things, yes,
early in your twenties than you did. But I guess
this was.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
Like but I think I think maturity is relative, and
I think maturity and.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
Awareness are two different things.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
I think I was a little I was a little
aware of certain things because of how I had to
live my life, because I pretty much and I don't
want to say raise myself because my parents were there.
But being eight and having to get your brother and
bring him home and help him with his schoolwork and
do a sort of stuff kind of grew me up fast.
Traveling on my own from ten and doing all this
stuff grew me up fast.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
So maybe it's also to not necessarily awareness versus maturity.
But at a certain age you realize that you're not
as invincible as you thought you were. Yes, you know,
like some things you think are not a big deal
in your twenties, people looking at it in their thirties
and forties would be like, yeah, that's a big deal.
Like to chill out, you know what I'm saying. They're
saying that typically women mature around thirty two. Interesting, and

(20:07):
when talking about maturity, the science is based on how
the brain matures. Female brains tend to identify from being
the moment she was a girl. However, it's not until
a male begins to produce testosterone that their brains are
distinguishable from females. Interesting as puberty starts, female brain jumps
to at least two years older than their physical age,

(20:28):
whereas males, however, usually take until their late teen years
or even early twenties to match their female peers mental age.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
Interesting, it kind of goes in line with all the
older guys that be at the high schools trying to
get the same girls.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
It's like all them girls in high school think the
high school boys are so immature, so they want to
date the old guys. Right, But now we call those
guys pedophiles. But I remember growing up and that was
that was the thing all the time.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
The girl Katti, when is he going to grow up?
Is he going to grow up? You know?

Speaker 3 (21:00):
In there maturity, But maturity and wisdom comes with experience
and also stepping in it.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
Sometimes I'll give making mistakes. I'll give you an example, right.

Speaker 3 (21:09):
You know how much I love black women, right, My
mom's black, my aunts, my grandmother's black, like they all black.
I love black women. I've been supported right by black
women my whole life. But I remember doing an interview
with Madame Noir, and I wanted to create a dialogue
about what pack about what people think.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
So it was called ask a black man. They asked me,
or do ask a black man?

Speaker 3 (21:31):
And they asked the question, what's the first thing you
think of when someone says a black woman?

Speaker 1 (21:36):
Right?

Speaker 3 (21:36):
And my first response is, man, people always say black
women are angry. That's not what I thought, but that's
the first thing when people say, oh black women. So
I said, oh, angry, and I'm thinking this is going
to create dialogue about how people view black women as angry.
And then the comments people upset, like, oh, you think
black women are angry? And I said, I never said
I thought it. The question was framed to me as

(21:59):
what's the first what's the first thing people think of
when when you say black women?

Speaker 1 (22:03):
And I was like, angry.

Speaker 3 (22:04):
Let's talk about why people think that, because I wanted
to have a conversation about how black women had to
try to find a way to thrive for themselves.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
And I was twenty how old were you at the time?
Would have never answered that, I don't.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
Think because of experience, And that's my whole reading the room.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
Right, You can't just say can't say that, because what
they're going to do is take that clip of you
saying angry and then it goes viral and then exactly
what happens, But that's black women's angry.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
And that's my point though, was that experience taught me
how to and it's you know, people call it media training.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
It's not media training.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
It's experience of how to answer questions or how to
add context to whatever you want to say so that
people can understand what where you're coming from. But what
my point is is that that took time. I'm thirty
eight years old now and I would answer that completely differently.
But in that time, I was in my mood like
I'm getting ready to defend why black people, why women

(22:58):
think black people are angry, and they took it as
devout things Black women are angry. And when I look
back on it, I can't even be mad at them
because when I look back at it, I'm like, that's
what it seems like I said. But then you would
have to watch the whole episode to understand where I'm
coming from. But then even in that, it's like devout,
Why would you even answer that like that?

Speaker 1 (23:20):
But it took me time.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
You know what I'm saying, and that's what I'm trying
to get people to understand what this situation is that
he is going to need time to learn how to
deal with everything that's coming at him, right, Like, everybody
isn't going to be Lebron James and go.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
Through the NBA unscathed by any scandals.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
Like, first of all, the fact that Lebron James has
gone through the entire his entire NBA career during the
social media era with all the scrutiny unscathed is kudos
to him, right, But also it says a lot about
how he grew up because he had a single mom,
he was in the streets a lot, and he had
to learn on his own. And maybe that's the reason

(24:02):
why he has a lot more wisdom when it comes
to doing certain things because he did it on his own.
If John grew up in a little town where he
was coddled by his parents and then went to a
private school, that may be a reason why he doesn't
understand how his behavior is being perceived so negatively by people.
And yes, it is being perceived negatively by people for
a reason, but he has to understand that.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
So think about accountability partners. Right. Lebron, for example, had
Savannah that he grew up with literally since there were babies.
You and I have each other who has literally grown
up since we were babies together. Do you think it
helps to have somebody if it's not a partner, but
just someone who's that accountability partner, that might be that
person on your shoulder, Like, don't do that because you know,

(24:45):
because you said, you feel like you've been a lot
more successful having, for example, a woman by your side
who has helped to keep you afloat. Do you think
that that is something that would benefit from other people.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
No, I think you got to be your own accountability
partner and be aware because this that happens when you
have accountability partner. If your accountability partner misses something, now
you have somebody to blame. Well, you're supposed to be
the one to check me on that. No, you have
to go through stuff in life, and here's the sad truth.
Sometimes you got to hit rock bottom.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
Right. For example, the thing with me and the interview.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
After people saying, oh, don't like black women and he
hates black women. Because of that statement, I had to
really reflect and be like, I answered that so wrong.
But it took me having to deal with that. If
I had an accountability as someone else who was on
my shoulder, who was just like, if I don't say that,
because they're going to take it like this, and I
just listened. That would work until that person is no

(25:38):
longer there. I had to learn and go through that
on my own, realize how you hurt people, Realize how
what you say and what you do is not always
what you mean, but how people perceive it and how
they take it matters. And sometimes it takes you going
through that to realize it. So I don't believe in
the accountability partner thing. When it comes to being responded

(26:00):
for yourself. You have to deal with it, go through
the fire like he's going through the fire now. And
I guarantee you because if you actually listen to John
Morantz speak, he's a very intelligent person.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
Right.

Speaker 3 (26:12):
He may not be the most eloquent or articulate at
times because once again he's still very very young. Yeah,
but he's not stupid, you know what I'm saying. You
can tell he's not stupid because he ain't come a
run here, like I don't give a fuck, I don't
care he's not. He's taking his time, you know what
I'm saying. He's being patient with it. But I'm telling you,
if he goes back and watch some of the things
he's done over the last couple of years, and then
he's gonna be like, you know what, I could do

(26:33):
this better. I could handle this level of professionalism and
celebrity better. And that's what I want to implore people
to do with him. But also, if you have children,
and this is where I want to talk to you
a little bit, because you and I have dealt with
this with Jackson, I want to implore people to let
their children make mistakes young when the stakes are and

(26:55):
as high.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, that's the philosophy that you've taken on. Because for me,
naturally being mom, you know, I want to see him
about to full. I want to catch him, you know.
I want to make sure that they try to get
through most of their life unscathed. Right. And I've learned
with each son progressively, and it's been a learning process

(27:18):
to allow them the space to have some mistakes, for
example Jackson, Right. And we can use Jackson as an
example most of the time. It's because he's our oldest
and we've gone through the.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
Most with him.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
And how I would have handled differently this one scenario
in the past Jackson has a virtual class that he
has to do online, right, virtual math class in order
for him to advance because he's so far ahead with math.
So we have a meeting with the teacher on FaceTime.
Set him up for everything, make sure that he has
everything to set him up for success with this particular course. Now,

(27:54):
what it's requiring him to do is to do work
outside of the school setting because he could have had
the option to go to attend a class in person
during this, But who wants to go to some school, right,
I'm not subjecting my kid to that. Am not subjecting
me to that. I'll put it that way. Okay, I'm
not sticking around for you to take a math class
in the summer. We're gonna it virtually because why, I'm
also trying to teach time management skills. Old Kadeen after

(28:17):
this meeting with his teacher would have been like a hawk, right, Jackson,
did you do Jackson? Is this date is assignments due? Jackson?
Do you finished? Did you talk to your teacher? And
I would have been side emailing the teacher like, hey,
where's Jackson in the process with this? That's Kadeen. A
couple of years ago, Kadeen now in trying to teach

(28:39):
accountability and trying to teach times management and trying to
teach a lesson. Overall, here are all the tools you
have to be successful with this course. Every now and again.
Hey Jackson, you know, how's the virtual math class going? Okay?
Are you all caught up? Everything is good? Help?

Speaker 3 (29:00):
Yeah? Thatah?

Speaker 1 (29:00):
Yeah we were good.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, my gosh, gosh, I'm good.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Good. Yeah, I know.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
Oh you know if you have problems and stuff, you
know you can hit right good?

Speaker 1 (29:08):
Got you?

Speaker 2 (29:08):
I know you have a free day Sunday. You know
you want to put in an hour or two?

Speaker 1 (29:11):
No, because I don't need to do that. Almost off,
my gosh, I got I got it, I got it.

Speaker 2 (29:15):
Fast forward to when the first module is supposed to
be over and the teacher sends an email with me
cc done it. Hey, you just wanted to touch base
because you know, with the end of the module is
coming near and out of the ten assignments, Jackson is
only completed two of the ten MM. Then she called

(29:36):
me as a follow up to the email. Don't have
no teacher calling my phone.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
That that is your rule.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
Don't have to get the email by my phone. But
don't be calling and texting me sis because now why
I'm looking at my son's sideways because in me trying
to be hands off to teach him a lesson, ultimately
it taught him the lesson. So now Deval and I
have in the conversation with Valda is like a side
a side convo with him, like, Yo, what's going on
with your math class?

Speaker 3 (30:04):
I was very simple. I said, yeah, what's going on
with your math class? And he goes, huh. Anytime you
ask the kid a direct question and looked them in
the eye and looking at you when they first response
is hunh, that means they already know that they fucked up.
That's what's going on with your math? He first says
to me. I understand it, Jackson. I don't want to
hear that because I've heard your mom ask you many

(30:24):
times if you needed help and stuff and you dismissed
a verson got it in now that his eyes are
well en up, So I'm like, what's the matter matter?
I'm just upset because my math grade. What's what's your math?
I don't know yet, but I missed some assignments. Cool,
you're supposed to go to the city championship game for
Cardinal Hayes with Jay on Sunday.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
Right, Yes, Okay, it's Friday.

Speaker 3 (30:48):
If all of those assignments aren't made up, can't go
bro Like I'm not I'm not upset at you. I'm
You're gonna make mistakes or make poor decisions, so I'm
not angry. Your mother is not angry. But there are
also consequences for not doing what you're supposed to do,
so you're gonna have to find time to make these

(31:09):
assignments up before Sunday. He's huffing and puffing. Huffing and puffing. Hey,
you can huffing and puff for all you want, but
these are the consequences.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
I'm not mad.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
If you want to go watch TV, we could also
go watch TV. If you want to play, we could
do that. But you have to decide this young man
on Saturday night. No, it's Friday nights. Sits down with me, Dad.
Can we go over these two?

Speaker 1 (31:31):
All right?

Speaker 3 (31:31):
We went over the two, set a scheduled appointment with
his tu to Roger, and got six assignments done. The
next day early in the morning. He woke up early
on a Saturday when he had a long four day
weekend and got all the assignments done early in the
day on Saturday, and then finished the last one Saturday night.

(31:52):
The point of the story is when you allow kids
to fail when the stakes aren't as high, they learn
how to maneuver and navigate. Because this same kid, if
you'd always been on his back and I made sure
the work gets done, and you do this and do that,
because I've seen it happen in college. Now you're a
freshman in college, and now it's time for eligibility going

(32:14):
into sophomore year, and you have a zero point six
GPA because you didn't do any assignments. And the only
reason why I'm telling this story is because Marcus tells
the story All the time. I watched Marcus coasting. Marcus
had a zero point six GPA going into his sophomore
year and almost miss camp because he had to take
sixteen credits in the summertime.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
Oh my goodness, I had no idea.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
But since he had to take sixteen credits in the summertime,
he was out of shape because he couldn't do summer conditioning.

Speaker 1 (32:40):
We get back to camp. What happened.

Speaker 3 (32:42):
Marcus gets hurt because his body's out of shape. So
with sophomore year was what trash and it all started
because he didn't do what he had to do academically
his freshman year and try to play catch up more
all of the story. Teach your kids how to deal
with consequences when the stakes aren't is high, so that
when mistakes become high, they don't have to deal with
the consequences.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
For sure.

Speaker 3 (33:04):
You'd rather get a call from a teacher in middle school, yes,
then get a call from your child when the dean
says he can no longer come to school because he's
behaved poorly, or when you see him on an ESPN
ticker and he's been kicked out of the league because
he's making poor decisions. You'd rather get them conversations when
they're in middle school.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
And I explain that to the teacher as well too,
because I'm also very hyper aware of the fact that
my son is a black child. She knows that we're
black because we was on FaceTime together, right, yes, And
I never want her to feel like, oh, it's just
another like black kid that's just not not being supported,
not being supported by his family. So that's to his
own devices. So I was very clear and eloquently expressed

(33:44):
to the teacher that after the FaceTime Jackson, I had
a discussion and I decided to take a hands off
approach to teach him.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
Tell them what you said to her grade him? How
to grade Jackson?

Speaker 2 (33:57):
Remember that's I forgot. It was so fewman that I
always remember.

Speaker 1 (34:01):
You said, listen, do what you have to do.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
Grade him accordingly, great according I.

Speaker 3 (34:07):
Was like, wow, that's a change, because old black mus
be like, don't give him a bad grade.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
Let me fix this, or I would have also flown off,
which I would have been kept my composer on the
phone with the teacher and then flew off the handle,
and Jackson would have been like, oh my god, mom.
I was very calm with him. I didn't I didn't scream,
I didn't yell. It was and sometimes I think they
receive it with more, not fear, but almost like, oh shoot,
because she's too calm. You know what I mean. I

(34:31):
got books wasn't flying, and his wasn't.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
You know.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
I was very very calm, And I explained to the teacher.
I said, I've been explaining to Jackson the importance of
time management. I'm trying to teach him accountability and him
making a prioritizing his schedule, I said, because he does
have a heavy schedule, and I'm aware of that. I said,
But in the process, he understands the importance of your class,
I said, because you take the time to reach out,

(34:54):
and it's taken time out out of your schedule to
sit down and call an email and text me to
keep me abreast what's happening. I said, However, I want
you to understand that's the lesson I'm trying to teach here.
Jackson is fully supported by myself and my husband, I said,
but he's also eleven years old, and I'm trying to
teach lessons here. And she completely understood. I understand, I said,
so baby bear grade him accordingly. And I said, if

(35:17):
he gets a poor grade in this class now in
the first module, and then he knows, I have to
catch up. At least he knows.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
He knows.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
At least he knows, you know. And I like to
shout myself out, but not going crazy on his ask
because I really in the past, which I mean, like,
what the fuck are you doing? We're not going nowhere
this weekend. You can stay to a home and do everything,
but we still got on the flight to New York,
and he found a way to juggle everything and he
understood the work in the process. So it's a win
win for me.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
And I want to pat myself on the back for
helping you get to that point, baby, because there was
a lot of times where I was just like Kadem
that you're not you're not helping him by one coddling him,
but number two being the intersection between him and his
teacher and stopping something bad from happening.

Speaker 1 (36:03):
Yes, and we.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
Can both discuss that because both of our young our
sisters extremely young, were both skipped because they were so smart.
I think the third child is always the smartest child
because they get to watch two iterations of their parents
and their siblings. So Torri and Sakari were both extremely
smart and both started school early. Yes, so they both
graduated high school early early, but they both also dealt

(36:25):
with maturity issues because they were so young going through
school that our parents coddled them through the process because
they were early. So your parents and my parents helped them,
help them, help them then when they got to college,
and well, Sakari before college because Sakari went to boarding school,
and then it was time to apply for college. She
had no one there to help her with the process.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
She was lost.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
And because your mom did everything and you helped do
everything beforehand, she was lost.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
And she I remember coming to our house.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
She was like, I have that vague and he said, scary, skary,
what do you mean you have nothing?

Speaker 1 (36:59):
She said, I have nothing. I have no schools to
go to. Everyone's talking about accepted tess and I have nothing,
and shut up, shut up? Did you apply? Did you
apply here? Did you do this?

Speaker 2 (37:12):
No? I didn't know.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
I didn't know.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
No one helped me. And I was like, see, it's
because you were so accustomed to someone always coling. Now
you have nothing.

Speaker 3 (37:21):
And my sister, my sister was the same way. My
sister was pushed through this whole process.

Speaker 1 (37:26):
My mom is.

Speaker 3 (37:27):
My mom is big on education. She went to school
to be an early childhood education teacher. And she she's
huge on making sure that academia is number one on
our list. So she was on our backs, so make
sure this gets done, make sure that gets done. She
was the mom who took your book report, ripped it.
The Streds did the book report. Then you submitted it,
and your teacher would say tell your mom she did
a great job, like.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
The Ubiquitous Melancholy. Where's that from? No Clue The Cosby Show.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
Yes, Yes, Yes, Report, Yes, the Ubiquitous Melancholy.

Speaker 3 (38:00):
But then my sister got to college and she struggled
because my parents weren't there to help in the process.
And then once she got an academic advisor in college,
they helped her through the process. But then when she
graduated from college, she felt lost again. Imagine and I
want to take this back to Jah, right. Imagine being
an athlete, right, and you're in middle school and you're

(38:21):
nice in middle school, and they're like, oh, we want
you to go to this private school. Okay, well the
academics is kind of tough, but we're working. We'll give
you a course load that you can manage basketball in
this so okay, so y'all gonna pick out my classes.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
Cool.

Speaker 3 (38:35):
I'm not saying this is what happened with Ja, but
I know for a fact when I was at Polyprep,
this is what I watched. Yeah, we're gonna help you
with this, and we're gonna help you with that, and
the kids still have to do the work.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
But it's like you're struggling we'll get you a tutor.
You know this will get you with that.

Speaker 3 (38:48):
So your whole life you're just like, oh, okay, you
graduate from high school, you go to college. We have
an advisor for you. I know this because I went
through this at Hostra. I went to regular Hofta University.
I was in the School of Business. I was then
in the School of Communication. Some of my counterparts was
in New College. New college is away for athletes to

(39:10):
get easy grades or they can be eligible to play
NCUBA sports. You graduate with a degree in interdisciplinary studies,
your introduce mere stories, your minor maybe art history.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
And I've watched them how they coddled the athlete through
the whole process. So, oh, you failed a class. Oh,
we'll have you make another one up in the summer.
We'll talk to this person. So your whole life, people
are moving obstacles out of your way to make sure
that you can do what you want. While doing all
of this, you're behaving like a child because realistically you
don't have to mature. Now you get drafted to the

(39:43):
NBA and you're a number two overall pick. You get
thirty million dollars. Then you signed a shoe deal, you
have one hundred million dollars. Now you have a total
of one hundred and thirty million dollars. You have an iPhone,
and you have all the friends that you grew up
with in that same environment who were doing childish things
in the neighborhood you grew up in.

Speaker 2 (40:03):
What do you think to do it on a higher level?
Time and the resources to do it on a higher level.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (40:11):
That is the environment that some of these athletes are
living in, and it is not an excuse. I'm not
saying that we should just let them off the hook.
What I'm saying is give these young people time to mature.
Since we're watching them in real time. Just give them
time to mature, and if they continue to make the
same mistakes, then it's like, hey, dude, you've had enough.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
It's now as consequences.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
We try to tell yeah, brother, we try to tell
yah mm mmmm and shout out to me again. I'm
just kidding. No. I say that because I'm thinking what
made me think about just going back to the story
about parents, how different I parent compared to my mom.
Initially when I was raising we were like I had Jackson.
I remember a time in second grade where he wasn't

(40:55):
bringing home his homework. There was confusion. Remember he had
that one teacher that was just like, yeah, it was
weird because she used to teach fourth grade. She came
to second grade. She wasn't organized Catyle, yes this Catel
and Jackson was super confused about what to do, and
she was expecting certain things from them that she was
used to with her fourth graders, but she was now
teaching second grade. As my girl, you have to like

(41:15):
work through these things with the kids. And Jackson would
come home like Jackson, where's your home or where's this?
And he's like, I don't know, I don't know. He
was confused, Yeah, And I was yelling and screaming at him,
like you need to bring home yourself like that, because
that's what my mom used to do with us. God forbid.
We forgot a book at home and we had to
test the next day. I mean literally, my mother was
like chewing our heads off, livid because she's like, how
are you going to prepare for schoolwork? How are you

(41:37):
gonna prepare for this test? And you don't have your stuff.
So I did the same thing to Jackson, and I
saw like the fear in his eyes, yes, and the disappointment,
but also the confusion because he didn't know. So now
I'm like, this is a different approach that I have
to take, and not just parent the way I saw
my parents' parent but parenting in my own style and
what I think is going to be conducive to the

(41:58):
type of child I'm trying to raise in the type
of lessons that I'm trying to teach.

Speaker 3 (42:01):
So I think that's a good point because this situation
with Job is also something new to everyone because people
are saying, like, he should know better on social media.
Social media is a very new thing still. It just
came out in two thousand and four. Yes, it is
twenty twenty three, which means it is nineteen years old,
nineteen jobs twenty three, which means Joe was born right

(42:24):
before social media became a serious thing. So everything we're
watching now, we're actually learning this is all Like, of course,
someone't call it cause a test run. It's a test
run in life. It's a social it's yes, it's like
a real life social experiment how people act when they
have social media. I want to ask parents this because

(42:46):
I also do well. I did social media checks when
I had my program Prototype Elite Prototype Athletics in New York,
and I huld do social media checks, and the stuff
that they see on social media often dictate how they
behave on social media.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Because the fed more of that particular thing.

Speaker 3 (43:05):
And if the algorithm feeds you what you type in,
they create the world. So you think everybody is seeing
the same thing you see. So say, for example, go
into the strip club and throwing up gang signs and
flashing guns. It's all you see because that's all you
type up because from a young man, that's all you

(43:27):
were interested in because of social media, rap music, other things.
Now that you have your own social media and you
have actually do stuff, you know what you're gonna do.
Emulate the behavior that you think everybody else is emulating.
That's it, you know what I'm saying. That's also the
dangers of social media, which is why our children don't
have social media. That's why Jackson, who's turning twelve now,
I finally allowed him to get an Instagram, but he's

(43:51):
not allowed to have his own Instagram. And his Instagram
is linked to my phone, so at any moment I
can go on my phone go to his profile, he
doesn't have his name on it, he doesn't have any pictures,
he's not allowed to share anything, but he's allowed to
look up basketball highlights and all this other stuff. So
I go to his profile to see the search history,

(44:12):
because that's what happens. And then I look at us,
making sure like, Okay, he's not watching too much of this,
he's not watching too much of this. He's also looking
up this. I also send him motivational stuff. I send
him positivity stuff. I send him intellectual stuff, so that
it becomes part of his search history.

Speaker 1 (44:28):
So there's a little there's a little trick. There's a
little trick I'm gonna tell parents.

Speaker 3 (44:32):
I go into his Instagram and I look up certain
things I like. For example, the last few weeks, I've
looked up Confucius quotes, motivational quotes. So now when he
looked when he opens up his not his search, his homepage.
When he comes on his homepage, he's like, what is this?
He doesn't know why it's there. So what I'm starting

(44:54):
to do is I'm trying to remember the movie insumption.
When you can plant an idea in someone's head, was
like curating his social media world by putting stuff on
his page that he didn't even know he was looking for.

Speaker 1 (45:06):
And then he'll come to me, Dad, did you know?

Speaker 3 (45:08):
No? No, And I'm like, well, tell me about it,
and then I'm engaged in his social media world so
that we can create it together. And this is why
I wanted to talk about the Jah Morant thing as
a dad. People are saying, what is his father doing?
John Moran's father don't know how to deal with social media.

Speaker 2 (45:24):
But also to what I was going to say when
you mentioned the whole Jackson thing, we talk about athletes
and entertainers being positive role models for the youth, right
because what they see is what they're going to want
to emulate. But also too, then there's the where are
the parents who are now filtering and buffering what they
do see from these entertainers and then making sure that

(45:45):
their children know better for lack of a better word, Right,
that's interesting that now we can curate almost this world
and curate their social media world by having access to
their social media if your child does have it, you know,
because you know me, I was a hard no on
any social media. You will come to the kids and
everything like that. But just's also sorry, because I also

(46:07):
understand that Jackson is someone who likes to research, and
he likes to investigate things if he's interested in it.
So I can see how giving him a little bit
of that leeway will make him feel like he's all
right part of it. But he's also not understanding that
Dad is curating a world for him with his phone.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
But here's a crazy thing, though.

Speaker 3 (46:25):
Being a hard no for a young person only means
that he's going to be a hard know in front
of you if you gave your son a phone, or
if his friends have access to a phone. I know
this because I was a mentor for hundreds of young boys.
There were kids who parents came to me. It was
just like, I got this note from the school that

(46:45):
so and so I don't want to say names, of course,
so and so was involved in some bullying online with
Da Da Da da, And it was like, this has
to be fake because my son doesn't even have a phone.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
I was like, and like, what you mean?

Speaker 3 (46:56):
I said, a lot of these kids create profiles on
their friends phones. And one of the kids who got
in trouble it actually was not him, but he let
his friend use his phone and his friend no, not
his friend had his own profile on the kid's phone
and was bullying other kids. But you know, because of this,

(47:19):
it was all like, oh, well, it's his phone, it's him,
it's him, it's him. It came from him. And the
kid was like, I had no idea that my friend
was doing this. But that also shows you. And then
you speak to that kid's parents and mind they all
tell you my son's not allowed to have social media,
So that hard no only means it's going to be
a hard no in front of you. The best thing
to do is to try to curate the experience for

(47:40):
your children, especially in the middle school age, because if
you think that your children are beyond thinking or talking
about sex, thinking or talking about drugs and alcohol thinking,
or above thinking talking about violence and bullying, you're wrong.
You're wrong. If you if you think that you can
ignore it because your child would never do that, you're wrong.

(48:00):
You have to curate the experience so that they understand
the consequences with all three and make sure that you're involved,
so that they feel adults enough to be like, oh,
I'm making a decision with my parents' parents not being told,
because when you tell kids not to do this, and
you say this, this right here, what's happening. The job
is ultimately what happens. They get money, they're on their own.

(48:22):
There's no one to tell them what not to do,
because all of the hanger ons and friends are saying, yo,
do what you want to do because now you're worth
millions and they want to be a part of their lifestyle.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
Time.

Speaker 1 (48:31):
They gonna let you do it until you self distructed.

Speaker 2 (48:33):
Should be lonely, baby, it should be lonely. All right,
let's transition into a quick break and then we'll come
back for some listener letters. Sound good, Bow bow baby boo.
Stick around, y'all. All right, we're back, We back, and

(48:58):
let's dive. First of all, I'm a fan of your
podcast as well as your book, which I have already read.
Great book, awesome, thank you. I also attended your live
podcast in Chicago recently. Great show. Yeah, Chicago was live,
y'all live that all our Patreon people will be able
to see the live show, So make sure y'all just
signed up. I think that was probably my most favorite

(49:19):
city this round of Chicago, hands down. Chicago. Was it?
All right, y'all? I just want to give you both
your Flowers, I appreciate that. I love the message that
you both sent out to your fans, with me being
one of them. With that being said, I wouldn't ask
anyone else this question. I recently ended a three year relationship,

(49:40):
but thinking about a friend with benefits with the same X,
there's no punctuation in here, so I'm trying to make.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
Sure this person wrote a whole.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
At the very end of it, so I'm trying to
think where the thought slops. But thinking about a friends
with benefit relationship, I guess with this same X, is
it ever a good idea to do friends with benefits
with an X? I'm just curious about both of your opinions.
So if you ended the three year relationship, I can
I guess I'm wondering why. Maybe you guys realize that
the relationship situation wasn't working out, but the sex is bombs,

(50:13):
so you're just like, you know what, I'll keep you
around for some good sex on the side.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
This is what I think.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
But is there an agreement that y'all have?

Speaker 1 (50:21):
That's what I think. I'm not mad at this, and
I'm gonna tell you why.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
Okay, anyone who chooses to practice safe sex with someone
that they trust, with someone that they trust. I applauded, Yes,
you know, because I say you have I don't want
to say that's a bad term. I was gonna say,
say you have an itch you want scratch, that's a
bad term. We'll talk about safe sex, but say you're
trying to to engage in sexual activity. Why not engage

(50:44):
with someone that you you know already and if they
have great sex. You don't want to be out here
just trying to jump and soul tied with another person,
soul tied with another person. Listen, we know we're not
gonna be together forever. We're not working on this long term,
so let's just have fun. The only thing that can
be an issue with that is that you can't open
yourself up to finding true love if you're continuing to

(51:05):
be in this relationship with someone.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
You understand what.

Speaker 3 (51:08):
I'm saying, Like I think, Steve Harvey made this analogy
about how he wanted a new car, wanted a new car,
wanted a new car, so he kept his old car
in the driveway and kept saying, thing, I keep working,
but I can't get a new car, and his dad
told him, you won't be able to get a new
car till you create space for the new car.

Speaker 1 (51:23):
So he got rid of the old one.

Speaker 3 (51:26):
And when he realized when he got rid of the
old one, metaphorically, not only did he get rid of it,
he got rid of the mindset that he had a car.
So he worked harder to get the new one and
ended up getting the new one faster because he got
rid of it. I feel like that's kind of the
same thing here. You know, you're less likely to go
out and find your soul mates or the person that
you want to be with for eternity if you're continuing,

(51:48):
continuing to conodle and be comfortable with someone else.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
Right right, right, right, that's it's actually difference. I didn't
think of it that way, like that could impede the
process that he finding somebody knew, but that's what's right.
But I understand and guaranteed safe good sex is probably
hard to find. So you know how I keep this
one around.

Speaker 1 (52:06):
You know, that's what you get me around.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
That's how I keep them around.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
Good sex and the American Express.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
Oh, good sex and the American Express.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
Glad I get married good sex in the American Express.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
That's gonna be my next shirt. I'm about to copyright that,
so nobody steal that, all right, I'm about to put
it on the put it on the Dead Ass podcast
page for merch. But yeah, good luck to you, says.
Hopefully it works out and both of y'all's favor and
hopefully you know he'll be signed up to. Actually, I
don't know if it's he or sheet because it didn't
specify and specifying. Yeah, but do you think number two?

Speaker 3 (52:44):
Hey, Kadeen and Davos. So, I've been dating my boyfriend
for about five months now. I love him so much.
I see he loves me a lot too. That's good
for both of you. I like that for you guys. Uh,
But before meeting me, I think he had this picture
of the kind of woman he wanted to be with.
Were both Christians, but he's more vocal about it and
has his beliefs in all. I love to have. Oh,
I love to have a glass of wine to unwind

(53:05):
or hang out with friends and have a cocktail. But
he doesn't like me drinking alcohol, but I see nothing
wrong with it. So I've been trying to stop that,
and it looks like I'm trying to settle Oh.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
I know where this is going.

Speaker 3 (53:17):
I also love to go to parties, like if it's
for friends and all. I'm not a party freak, but
I love to go with him and he doesn't like
to go to places like that. He also is Christian Pentecostal.
While I'm Catholic. He doesn't believe in the Catholic faith
and tries to make me go into his faith, being
Catholic all my life. I honestly don't mind switching when

(53:38):
we get married because I should be able to trust
his leadership to lead. But it feels off and I
just feel like I'm settling into this life. I'm selling
into his life. What do y'all think? I'm a huge
fan and I love y'all. We love you to thank you.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
Kay you a huge fan, baby. You know. We don't
settle over here. That's one thing that we do not
do now. Granted, people's relationship with the Lord I don't
speak much on because I believe that's a very personal thing.
But I don't believe in settling when it comes to
a relationship. I don't feel like you should have to
give up things that matter to you greatly because someone

(54:12):
else is requiring that from you. I'm just not an
advocate for that at all. Period.

Speaker 3 (54:19):
I don't have to agree when you date. You date
to find out if there are synergies. When you don't
feel what something feels off, something doesn't feel good, you
can either make a choice to work on it because
you want to, but to work on it because he
wants you to. It's never a good science. That's extremely different.
Like Kadeen and I talk about in our book We
over Meet the Counter two with approach Getting Everything you

(54:40):
Want out your Relationship New York Times bestseller.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
We talk about.

Speaker 3 (54:45):
We talk about being of service, but not at the
detriment of losing yourself. That's very, very important. She said,
I feel like I'm settling into his life. I feel
like I'm settling into the life I want, and I'm
sharing it.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
With this woman.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
And you're with someone who gives you the latitude to
be able to stretch and to grow into that life
that you want without judgment. And the worst thing that
you could feel is judgment from anybody, much less your spouse.

Speaker 3 (55:17):
So I have a question ask you, as a woman,
do you feel like you've settled into my life or
do you feel like you're living the life you.

Speaker 2 (55:23):
Will absolutely not. I don't feel like I've settled into
your life. I've settled into the life that I've wanted
for myself, that I have envisioned for myself, and I've
just been fortunate and lucky enough to do it and
blessed enough to do it with someone who I feel
like is equally ooked.

Speaker 3 (55:37):
And the reason why I ask you because I know
oftentimes women say they feel like they have to transform
into what their husbands want.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
Yes, and the settle into a particular lifestyle, And I mean,
I feel that there's moments where I feel like I've lost
a bit of kdeen, but not to anyone's fault. It's
just the transitions of life, right, going from being a
single woman to the now a dating women to the
now a person in the committed relationship, then to a
wife and then to a mom. There's gonna be ebbs
and flows in life that you have to adjust. But
I don't feel like I've, you know, had to succumb

(56:06):
to whatever life it is that you helped you had
for us as the leader of the family. Because she
also mentioned like she's okay with trusting his leadership, which
I think I do with you as well too. But
then also, I'm never stifled in this relationship by you
either or I've never led to be felt or led
to believe that I don't matter or my opinion doesn't matter.
It's very much a teammate situation here. So yeah, to

(56:28):
answer your question, I don't feel like that. I feel
like I'm living truthfully in real time, in real life
with where I'm supposed to be.

Speaker 3 (56:36):
And I'm glad you brought that up, because even she
says like he doesn't like me to do this, He
doesn't like me to do that.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
He doesn't does he even.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
Like you.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
Like about each other?

Speaker 1 (56:48):
Like like I couldn't. I couldn't imagine being.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
It's only five months in two girls. It's giving that
you don't know a lot about what's about to unfold here.

Speaker 1 (56:56):
Either.

Speaker 3 (56:56):
I wonder I wonder how old they are because she
sounds young, he sounds very or young. But I can't
imagine like being with a girl, and it's being like, well,
I don't like did you do this?

Speaker 1 (57:04):
Change this? I don't like to do that.

Speaker 3 (57:05):
You know what if I got to keep telling you
to change stuff, or then I actually get a new girl.
I should find a girl that is in alignment with
the same things that I'm My mindsetting is alignment with you.
Understand what I'm saying as opposed to saying, well, you
need to change in order to be with me, And
not that he's saying that, but if she's feeling.

Speaker 2 (57:22):
That feeling that she said before meeting him, I think
he had this picture of the kind of woman he
wanted to be with. Baby. If you ain't in the picture,
if you're not in the art gallery at all, in
the wrong place, you know.

Speaker 1 (57:35):
What I feel you.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
I feel you you in the wrong places. So I
would hate for you to settle. I don't think anybody
should ever settle into anything, whether it's love, relationship, career,
none of that. So hopefully that's helpful to you. Good
luck to you on your road to love. All right, y'all,
If y'all want to be featured as a listener letter,
keep writing into us. Email us at dead ass Advice
at gmail dot com. We'd love to hear from you.

Speaker 3 (57:58):
That's D E A. D A S as A D
V I C at gmail dot com.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
I'm still so cozy here, guys. You know, if you're
watching on Patreon, you can see that I am very
much at home. You know, still got the stale weaving
that y'all saw me in last time. It's okay, no,
just kidding, we watched her. But yeah, baby, let's get
a moment of truth for you. We're talking today, maturity,
we're talking money, we're talking man, the athlete, the person.

(58:28):
But furthermore, just what we can do as a society
to I guess, help these people, these men, these women,
these people in a certain particular status. It's particular influence
through you know, rough times.

Speaker 3 (58:47):
It's not just a certain particular person, it's everybody. This
is my moment of truth. Just because you watch a
person reach a certain economic status, don't expect them to
be mature, especially if they're still young.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (59:02):
Someone can be gifted enough to earn income, well, but
that doesn't mean that they're mature enough to understand society.
And I think that this happens with professional athletes and
entertainers because they become idols quote unquote two people, which
I think is also a bad thing.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
You should never idolize.

Speaker 3 (59:17):
Anyone, Yes, but since when you make someone an idol
and they fall short of what you idolize.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
You can't blame them.

Speaker 3 (59:25):
Allow these young men and young women, especially between the
ages of nineteen to twenty five. A lot of these
entertainers and athletes become famous and rich very young. Allow
them to go through the process of becoming an adult
and make mistakes, you know, don't let's not condemn them
and hold them to that one or two experience for
the rest of their life. We see that all the
time in the world. Someone that you idolize make a mistake,

(59:49):
and now they're forty years old and you're still holding
them to the mistake they made it twenty three, We
got to learn how to let that go.

Speaker 2 (59:54):
That was like literally to be most Yeah, it was
like allow people in general, a particular people who are
of some sort of influence or some sort of fame,
allow them to make mistakes and to grow from them.
We would hope that nobody, that anybody stays the same
whether they're twenty then they go to twenty five to
thirty to thirty five. We would hope that people are

(01:00:16):
able to learn from their mistakes, be able to grow
from that, and just have a little bit of empathy
because realize too, you're also making mistakes as well, and
you just don't have the spotlight on you. So it's
easy for you to duck off into the you know,
the corner, yeah, because you don't have a spotlight on you.
But it's that much harder, particularly for our young men
and women who are given these large sums of money

(01:00:37):
or given this spotlight and don't really necessarily know how
to navigate it. So let's just try to be a
little bit kinder to people in general. I know we
say that a lot when it comes to just social
media and a lot of the topics that we've discussed.
But piling on to a situation that's already facts, you know,
fact negative or not you know, viewed in high regard,
is not doing anything good and then find lessons that

(01:01:00):
you can also as a parent teach your children from
things like this. So hopefully this episode was helpful to
y'all for that reason with a lesson.

Speaker 3 (01:01:08):
Oh one more thing too, can we stop equating blackness
with struggle, poverty, and violence? Like I think that we
have to stop saying that once someone behaves in a
certain way that shows violence or poverty or some sort

(01:01:30):
of undisciplined thing, is.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
Oh, they're trying to be too black. Blackness is not
one thing. Right.

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
You can be excellent and be black, you know what
I'm saying. You can be smart and be black. You
can be articulate and be black. You can be wealthy
and be black. Blackness is just not one thing. And
the reason why that bothered me and I wanted to
say this is because Jahn Morant is acting. He's a
young man who's acting like what so many other people
act like the rappers, you know what I'm saying, Especially

(01:01:58):
drill rap is huge right now, right, but white people
do the same thing, Asian people do the same thing India.
People Hip hop is a global phenomenon now. So when
you see people acting in a certain way, don't just say, oh,
they're trying to act or be black, right, because that's
not the only way to be black. And I want

(01:02:19):
to make sure that we're clear on that. And then
also that Jah Moran is not going to be the
only wealthy young man to make mistakes that part, you know,
So prayers and positive healing energy goes out to him
and his family. I can guarantee you he going to
thrive through this and be better. This is not the
first athlete to go through stuff. I remember when Alan

(01:02:40):
Ivers was going through all of this. I remember when
Chris Carter was going through all this, and that was
in the eighties. Chris Carter was going through all of
this stuff with the drugs and the fights, and he
got kicked off the Eagles, and that was the best thing.
When he got cut by the Eagles and went to
the Vikings. That's when he became a Hall of Famer
because the consequences showed him that he had to change
just behavior.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
That's what even think about the kids that the kids
just now in the University of Georgia after they won
the championship.

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
Championship, that's college level. You know what I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
Saying, that those actions may impede them from making it
to the big leagues. And it's just like, you know,
let's just try to rally around these kids, yes, and
teach these lessons before it's too late. Yeah, all right, y'all.
As usual, you can find us on Patreon. Shout out
to everyone who is signed up to see exclusive dead
Ass podcast video content. Also some exclusive from de Vo's

(01:03:31):
man Cave and some family content as well too.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
Yo.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
The Patreon Patreon circuits popping off pat re.

Speaker 1 (01:03:39):
Read the comments we got work. Be patient. I'm gonna
be honest to y'all.

Speaker 3 (01:03:45):
Are so used to getting stuff quickly on because of
the podcast, But Patreon is different. The videos have to
be edited, sound has to be corrected, color has to
be corrected. Yeah, we want it to be perfect, so
it comes out a little bit slower.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
But rock with us. We got it coming for sure
or for sure out to Josh.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
Yes, yes, yes, ganggang, they got us holding us down.

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
Okay, yes.

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
Find us on social media, y'all. In the meantime you'll
get some more content there. Instagram, dead Ass the Podcast
is our page. You can find me at Kadena. I
am on Instagram and TikTok.

Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
That's right, and I am devouring.

Speaker 3 (01:04:16):
If you're listening on Apple podcasts, be sure to rate,
review and subscribe.

Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
All right, y'all.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
Dead Ass dead Ass is a production of iHeartMedia podcast Network,
and it's produced by Donor Pinya and Triple. Follow the
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