Home Alone: Family Issues, Holiday Stress, and KEVIN!!!

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome to Popcorn Psychology, the podcast where we watch blockbuster
movies and psychoanalyze them. My name is Bernie Brownfield and
I'm a child therapist and I'm joined by.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Ben Stover individual therapist, Hannah Espinoza marriage and family therapist.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
We're all licensed clinical professional counselors also known as therapists,
who practice out of Chicago. Even though we are licensed
mental health professionals, this podcast is purely for entertainment purposes
and to fulfill our love of dissecting pop culture and
all forms.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Please remember that, even though we are all licensed therapists,
we aren't your therapist.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
If you are struggling with mental health symptoms, please find
a local mental health provider.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Today we're going to be talking about the nineteen ninety
Chris Columbus movie Home Alone, starring what would be the
one of the biggest stars of the nineties, Macaulay Culkin.
This movie is about you guess it, a kid that
is left home alone. Home Alone, as they mentioned about
eight hundred times in the movie. So our second John

(01:10):
Hughes movie of the year. We did Breakfast Club earlier
with Molly mclere, So this is about Kevin An eight
year old who, after a conflict with his family, gets
left home alone while they go off to Paris, and
they don't realize that they left him at home until
they are in flight to Paris. So the rest of
the movie is about this kid by himself. Well, two robbers,

(01:32):
the Wet Bandits try to rob his house and shenanigans zoue.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
As they tend to do. When you're looking at a
nineteen ninety coming of age film that every single one
of us wished we were in.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Oh, I wanted a what's that thing called that he
does at the end that detaches from the house of
the tree zip I feel like a zip line. The
Concert of Zipline had a choke hold on my generation
after this movie.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, so did treehouses, which I had.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
I absolute Well, that's a brag because not everybody had
one of those.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Everyone did not. It is definitely one of the things
that my dad did that was awesome for us, and
we definitely had a fort with battlements and used the
hell out of it. But we unfortunately could not talk
him into putting a zip line from our bedroom window
out to the tree ford though that would have been
possible because it would have been a direct line. However,

(02:26):
we also would have died. So sure.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah, two story drop, I can see where your dad
was like.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
No, my dad would say that having a house full
of three boys was a never ending factory of bad ideas,
and he was not wrong at all. So very thankful
I have girls.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
So the things we'll be touching upon today is, well,
we're mainly focusing on Kevin. Yes, we'll be talking about
the potential roots of behavioral issues as he is seen,
especially in the beginning of the movie as a kid
that is a quote unquote problem. Yes, we'll also be
talking about holidays and the impact they can have on families,
whether that's stress, estrangement, loneliness, et cetera. So before we

(03:12):
want to do that, I know, Ben, you wanted to
give a shout out about our new tech.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
I do, well. Mostly I want to give a shout
out to our Patreon supporters, because our new tech is
because of them, and I know that we say on
our Patreon that the point of starting one was to
help us have enough funds to actually upgrade our equipment
to sound good, so hopefully we do. Today we are
debuting some new microphones and want to say thank you
to all of you that have supported us on Patreon

(03:38):
and just by listening and sharing us all over the place,
because you guys doing that has enabled us to upgrade
our tech over the years and that's really mattered to
our sounds.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
So thank you, all right, And also, speaking of Patreon,
if you would like to become a Patreon Patreon it
is the best way to support us other than leaving
a rating and review wherever we listen to podcasts. If
you're a ten dollars or more patron, you get early
unedited access to some of our episodes, and if you're
a fifty dollars or more, you can pick the topic
of an episode. All right, so let's jump into mister Kevin. McAllister.

(04:11):
I will say off the top that I am a
Kevin apologist, and I will fight anyone on that.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yeah. Same. I don't see a single problem with Kevin's behavior.
I see a problem in the family system. I see
a problem where a kid is not getting his needs
met and he's struggling to get space to get his
very young needs met versus everyone that's around him. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
So Kevin is introduced as a kid who has an attitude,
as a kid who causes a lot of problems within
the home. When he first comes in, his mom's in
the telephone and he's doing that annoying thing kids do
where they ignore the fact that you're on the telephone
and they're just like mom, mom, mom. And he does

(05:01):
say something off the rip, which is pretty defiant, why
don't you get off the phone and make me So
it does established right away that he's a kid that
has a mouth and he will use that mouth. And
what I want to give him some credit for is
that the whole family has mouths. Yes, the whole family

(05:22):
is loud and somewhat mean. As something I say when
I do family work is it's not fair when we're
asking the younger or the youngest person, which is him
and his immediate family, to be better behaved than everybody
older than him, because he's also, right, the baby his

(05:42):
immediate family. Yes, he's not the youngest of all the
cousins that are there, right, there's definitely those two that
are younger than him, including the one who peas the bed,
But he is the youngest and his immediate family and
all of his siblings seem like their teenage level older
than him too, or.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
At least, but they've all significantly transcended being little kid.
And he is a little kid, and he definitely needs
a lot of attention. And I don't think he would
have developed the mouth that he does had his needs
been persistently not met. And he felt ignored that comment
about the phone that he made to his mom, why

(06:19):
don't you get off the phone and make me? He
could have just said, why don't you make me? A
kid with an attitude would have looked you square in
the face and said make me, But he said get
off the phone. Interesting. Yeah, so he's indicating that he
has felt like the phone and other things take up

(06:40):
the attention for him that he clearly resents, or it
wouldn't have been specifically mentioned because little kid.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, I wrote in my notes, like my first note
actually is Kevin is engaging in testing. If nothing else,
he is trying to see if he can push enough
to get his needs met. Like you're saying, Ben, push
enough to get attention, because everybody needs attention. Attention isn't
a bad thing, and the way we we sort of

(07:08):
weaponize that is a bad thing in our culture is shitty.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, it does, Like you're do you need too much?

Speaker 1 (07:13):
Attention, your attention seeking, your needy, as if needing attention
is a character flaw and it's a character's strength if
you don't need any And we especially need attention when
we're children because we are dependent upon other people. Attention
is linked to survival if nothing else, but also linked

(07:34):
to getting your emotional needs met and more of the
higher up needs met. And this is a kid that
is seems to be falling in the cracks of the
family system because it's not like even though we are
only introduced to them during this highly busy, stressful time,
they do make they do a good They do a

(07:56):
good job in the movie of setting the scene very
clearly that it feels like really worn in dynamics. None
of this feels like brand new. Everyone acts like Kevin's
always like this, like he's definitely gotten the label of
the scapegoat or the problem.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
Yeah, of course he has. He's also several years younger,
and it's clear that the parents have gotten used to
having older kids who have been independent m and had
Kevin clearly several years after they got out of the
mode of having little kids and resigning your life to

(08:35):
taking care of little kids, which is what it takes
to have them successfully is accepting that their needs come
first above everything else, period, all the time. But when
parents get out of that mode and have a younger
kid later, they can sometimes struggle to reactivate something they
had very much looked forward to being done with, kind

(08:56):
of the same way anybody else transitions phases. We don't
often look back college and be like, man, I want
to go back to college. Nope, I missed the times,
I miss the things I would do when I was
that age. But going back now, nah, you're done with
it by the time you're at the end of it,
kind of like high school. No matter what phase people

(09:17):
are in, you look back and you've transcended that. Well,
parents do the same thing because they've also aged and
come into new responsibilities and new things in new social
groups that they find That makes it difficult sometimes for
them to realize you still have to be the same
parent for the last kid that you were for all
the other ones.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
Yeah, and there's the stereotype right that by the youngest
child parents have kind of given up. That's kind of
like the wildly acknowledged stereotype.

Speaker 4 (09:49):
Yes, the youngest one having.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
Very different rules and expectations, which usually is talked about
from a more like indulgent, spoiled perspective. I think with Kevin, though,
we see the other version of that, which is he
gets lost in the sauce and that he's only acknowledged
and responded to once he's kind of hit his red zone,

(10:17):
once he's get really angry. Like I think a great
example of this is the suitcase situation at the beginning
of the movie. He gets told the night before their trip, yeah,
you still need to pack your suitcase, and he does
such a good job of asking multiple people, multiples of
his siblings, I don't know how how do you pack

(10:38):
a suitcase? I don't know how to pack a suitcase?
And instead of helping him, they keep just saying tough
and judging him, and he very maturely says, I've never
packed a suitcase before, how would I know what goes
in there. He does such a great job actually communicating
several times what he needs and why he needs it,

(11:01):
and he is met with disdain from every one of
his siblings until he gets really frustrated. And he's not wrong,
I wrote, he doesn't get frustrated until he gets blown
off several times and tortured.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
Yeah, I mean his siblings are incredibly mean and dismissive,
and I think it's a lot more than sibling rivalry
that we're seeing like this.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
They are mean to him, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:34):
And they pick on him and when I think that's
a great example, Brittany, when he is asking again asking
for help, and this is kind of what ends up happening.
And I think it's really unfortunate because then, especially in
big families, the problem, the problem quote unquote child is

(11:55):
the one that gets a lot of attention, but only
when things go poorly. When everything is fine, they maybe
get ignored or are just overseen.

Speaker 4 (12:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
It also makes me wonder if there is a dynamic
too where the parents expect his older siblings to step
in in this way. Like he doesn't go to his
parents really or an adult.

Speaker 4 (12:20):
To say how do I do this? He goes to
his siblings.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
And it's not wildly inappropriate for his siblings to I mean,
they're not adults, so they're not going to have necessarily
very like mature responses to him. They're also younger people
who are going to be emotional at times, which can
include being mean and blow him off and be a
little shitty because they're doing their own thing. So I
think it also shows the limitations of relying maybe on

(12:47):
your elder siblings to be caretakers for the younger sibling.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
It's not a thing that they're necessarily equipped to do.
They sometimes figure it out because they have to. But
in this family, it's really clear that mom does a
lot of things. Dad seems like he's just kind of
around typical. Yeah, Mensus nineteen ninety So world's real different, right,

(13:15):
real stereotypical at this point, and we see so much
evidence that nobody intervenes with the way the kids treat
each other. Uncle Frank even joins in on it, validating it,
encouraging it, and showing them that it's okay to be
a dick to each other. But nobody intervenes. Kevin goes

(13:39):
to his mom first. He's told by I don't know,
maybe Dad tells him that your mom is going to
be the one who packs your suitcase. Somebody tells him
that I forgot who.

Speaker 3 (13:49):
Oh, yeah, you're the last sibling, the last sibling side.
You know, you know Mom's going to do it anyway, right,
What are you worried about?

Speaker 2 (13:55):
Yeah? Right, yeah, I knew somebody said it. But then
he asks my hey, are you going to try to
pack my suitcase? Because that's what he was trying to
get her attention with when she was on the phone,
was hey, my suitcase isn't packed, and then she ignores him,
brushes him off, everyone's mean to him. He pops his
top when everyone's been mean to him, and the pizza

(14:17):
comes and they like Buzz eats his cheese pizza and
then does the gross thing where he like threatens to
barf it up. That's when he blows his lid and
knocks the milk.

Speaker 3 (14:26):
Over, which is just an accident and really is Buzz's
fault for pissing him off.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
Yeah, the real problem in this movie is with Buzz.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
Buzz is dick, but does he's mean?

Speaker 3 (14:39):
I hear what you're both saying about how maybe the
kids weren't ready to respond to him in that way,
But as an oldest sibling, Yeah, if they come to
you with a genuine question, I would have helped them. Like,
I feel like the response of this not only will
we not help you, but also we don't like you
pushes a line of a sibling relationship, and I think

(14:59):
you're right. It is interesting that the parents don't seem
to intervene at all when it comes to the siblings.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
Nope, there's no healthy modeling whatsoever. And that leads to
this unrestricted dynamic where Kevin's just caught up in the wash.
And yeah, it was an accident that he knocked over
the milk. He was still just trying to get attention
so that he could meet his needs.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yeah, because even though we only get a small window
of time of this family, a kid like Buzz.

Speaker 4 (15:30):
He didn't become that overnight exactly.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
So this dynamic of the way he treats probably everybody,
but especially the way he treats Kevin is I'm sure
a recurring, long term thing.

Speaker 4 (15:44):
For whatever reason.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
I don't know if Buzz's problem is because I want
to be mindful that he is also a young person. Yeah,
but he doesn't get any blame repercussions. There's no stepping
in on Kevin's part. Because I'll tell you what is
true about being an oldest sibling, because I think think
all three of us were old to siblings. Correct if
something happened, especially a physical altercation between me and a

(16:07):
younger sibling, I would be the one in trouble. My
mom in that situation would have said, Brittany, what happened.

Speaker 4 (16:15):
What did you do to Kevin?

Speaker 3 (16:18):
Yep?

Speaker 4 (16:19):
Or why did Kevin do that?

Speaker 1 (16:22):
I would have been the one in trouble no matter
what yep, which is appropriate in the sense that if
you are like at least fifteen, I assume, and you're
beefing with an eight year old, that is on you. Yes,
And I know all the times I beefed with my
siblings who are much younger than me, that was on me.
I look back and I'm like, my parents weren't wrong

(16:43):
in those ways. And the fact that Buzz feels so
comfortable being so mean to Kevin is indicative of a
larger issue, because I feel like his other siblings are
also mean to him, but they feel more regular sibling

(17:03):
mean in that they are caught up in their own
stuff and they're like, get away, go away, not I
don't want to deal with you. To me. Obviously, they
could be nicer. I'm sure I would have probably helped.
Like I have a brother who's eight years younger than me.
If he had came and I was like, I don't
know what to do, I think I would have been
like Oh, I would have made probably a production of it,
you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
But I still would have helped him. I would have.
That's not changed now.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
Been dramatic the whole time.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
I've been like, fine, but I still probably would have
gotten his stuff together. Yeah, And so the fact that
they blow him off. I don't love either, but they
do feel like this more the typical I don't want
to deal with you. Go find someone else. I think,
especially when you're in a big family, it can be
really easy to pass the buck, like go find your
other sibling, Go find your brother and ask him.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
I don't have time, especially in this amount of chaos
where they're with cousins of similar age, Like everybody is
grouping up with cousins of similar age, and there isn't
one that is Kevin's agent. That is something that the
movie made pretty clear. Kevin got grouped in with the
even younger kid who pees the bed still, and Kevin

(18:11):
is a he's in second grade. He says somewhere in
the film that you know, he's definitely past that point,
but he's still grouped that way, which is going to
undermine where he sees himself. And he's gonna buck that
and try to be with the older kids. But the
older kids, since they have an audience, are going to

(18:32):
be grouped up with their age group, probably still trying
to escape the tyranny of buzz and that age group.
We're all a bunch of dicks, and that's clearly enabled
and it's a problem. And then I think what we
see in the movie that really was straining is that
the first attention Kevin ends up getting from his mom

(18:54):
is that it doesn't go buzz, What the fuck? Yeah?
What did you do? Why? Kevin so upset? It was Kevin,
go upstairs and be by yourself on the third floor
where you're scared.

Speaker 4 (19:07):
And don't have any dinner.

Speaker 1 (19:08):
I mean, I just can't even get over Uncle Frank
saying you're being a little jerk and that being socially
acceptable with in the family.

Speaker 3 (19:16):
Yeah, And that's where I think maybe so Frank is
the dad's.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
Brother, yeah, because they share the same last name exactly.
So that makes me think that there's always.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
A bully in the family mm hmm, and.

Speaker 3 (19:27):
That everybody maybe ignores that because nobody says shit to
Frank when he says that to Kevin. Nobody says what
the hell? Why would you say that to an eight
year old kid. You're a grown ass person, right, So
it makes me think that that is a part of
the regular dynamic of at least one of the parents.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
And my guess is that it's the dad. It doesn't
seem like the dad is a bully. He seems quite
kind about a little detached. It seems like that is
a dynamic everyone is used to.

Speaker 4 (19:55):
A lot of passivity around yep.

Speaker 3 (19:57):
Yeah, Like nobody like he's being a jerk, but nobody's
gonna say anything because that's how Uncle Frank is.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
Because I feel like what would be more appropriate is
maybe you don't have like a full confrontation with Frank
in front of all the kids. You'd interrupt and be
like who whoa who? Frank, don't involved.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
He'd like, I don't notice.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
I think it would even be appropriate for the parents
to be like, hey, that's not okay. They don't call
names in the house, no, but like in front of everybody.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
I think millennial parents would do that. I don't think
this generation of Pearance would have done that hardly.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
Ever, Well, it's that very thing of adults don't make mistakes.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
Yeah kind of shit. Yeah, Boomers Don't Apologize titled my
new book.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
Which is where later I will talk about how I
love that the mom apologizes to Kevin. That's one of
the first thing she does when she gets home.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
I think also something I want to point out too,
which I think everyone in the family does to Kevin
is project their adults or their older wisdom knowledge onto Kevin.
So assuming he would know how to pack a suitcase,
assuming he would know how to not be a jury,
quote unquote the way that Frank defines it, the way
that adults will project our sophisticated brains onto children and

(21:10):
then hold them accountable as if kids are choosing to.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
Fuck with you.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
The way that adults would calling him a jerk is
so bananas when you really think about it, because he's
just living. But when I would try to express to
parents is he's just a kid living. Kids are just
trying to get their needs met. They're not rubbing their
hands together in their bedroom like an evil genius thinking
how can I fuck up someone's day to day unless.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
You're trying to break into their house at Christmas time?

Speaker 1 (21:38):
Well, yes, but in that case, but I would say
his need is still safety, right, He's trying to keep
his domicile safe. He's not just trying to fuck with
Trando's who are trying to house it.

Speaker 4 (21:48):
For them, of course not. This brings me.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
To another point I wanted to make about kevin Is giftedness,
which is something I'd never noticed when I watched the
movie before, but something I feel like I highlighted this
time watching it is they make a point in the
beginning of the movie about how he makes fish hooks
out of ornaments, that he is a really what's what
I'm looking for, like inventive kid. He's clearly very smart.

(22:13):
All the stuff he does over the whole course of
the movie, how he knows how to hide in the manger,
how he knows how to outsmart these stupid, stupid adult criminals.
Everything he does in this movie is so intelligent for
an eight year old, and they do make the case
that in the beginning. So it also makes me wonder

(22:33):
if part of him being kind of obnoxious, as they
would define it, is he's a kid that's really smart
and is not getting that need met either. A smart
kid who's left to their own devices can become a
behavioral kid very easily because they're bored because they're trying

(22:54):
to entertain themselves. It makes me think of how kids
will become behavioral issues in the classroom. And then a
lot of times, if someone is willing to do the
work and the time to take care of them properly
and assess them properly, they can figure out, oh, you
just are bored in class and you need more stimulation.
So he strikes me as a kid that probably needs

(23:15):
more stimulation that he's getting. He needs more attention than
he's getting, and that is a real shame. So we
will take a break here and we will be right back.
All right, Is there anything more we want to say
specifically about Kevin?

Speaker 2 (23:33):
And I think recognizing the giftedness is important. I think
that's an astute point. I think it's very critical to
recognize that an understimulated child will that's intelligent like he is,
will seek stimulation at the academic intellectual level they needed at,

(23:53):
and that will apply to kids of all intellect levels.
But if you see a kid who's constantly getting into
stuff and it seems to be smarter than their peers,
it's important to encourage and get them things that meet
the level development they're at. And I don't see that
happening with Kevin. I think Kevin's very different. They make

(24:18):
a lot of points to show that his brothers seem
to have pretty typical nineties teenager interests of jock level interests.
His brother's wearing a letterman jacket. He's got Michael Jordan
and Wayne Gretzky, and Larry Bird's got the little statues
of all the things that were real popular back then.
Probably part of that Saturday Morning cartoon show that had

(24:38):
Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Wayne Gretzky. I think those were
what those were from. I forgot what that was called,
but definitely part of like the Reaganism. Don't do drugs,
be like these super athletes.

Speaker 4 (24:47):
Yeah, they're all doing drugs. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
Maybe the important part of having any kid is recognizing
you have to recognize meeting their need at the level
of their need is the best way to manage behaviors.
Giving them what they need when they express it, how
they express it, as so long as it's within the

(25:12):
realm of appropriate will prevent a lot of the behaviors
we see demonstrated by Kevin in that first ten minutes
of the movie. None of these things he's demonstrating or pathological,
none of them. He's not a kid that's showing anything
other than understimulation, under appreciation, under brain left. But I

(25:36):
forgot what word I was looking for. But basically, he's
not neglected. Isn't quite the word I want, because his
needs are clearly met physically, but he's he's getting a
bit of emotional neglect where it's causing him to start
having to be more mouthy, more defiant, more antagonistic to

(25:57):
get his needs met and to hold his own space.
He's got to stand up for himself in the ways
that he can, which is not going to work physically,
so he's going to have to do it with his mind.
So he does.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
And as we've said, I'm sure many times in this
podcast with kids, any attention is good attention. So if
a kid can't get positive attention, they will settle for
negative attention, and that might be the loop they're stuck
in with Kevin, where like we said in the beginning
line of you know, why don't you get off the
phone to make me? That is the great example of

(26:31):
him getting whatever attention he can, even if it's not
great attention, not positive attention. But yeah, going back to
the giftedness. I wish his parents would be more curious
about what he's doing and respect the ingenuity that he's demonstrating,
Like he's a kid that's turning ornaments into something else,

(26:53):
into fish hooks and things like that.

Speaker 4 (26:55):
Maybe he excellent started a fire, but.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
I also think that's that if you leave a smart
kid to their own devices, they might accidentally do something
like start a fire. Because something that is very true
also about gifted kids or just smart kids in general,
is that they don't understand their own limits to their
intelligence sometimes, so it can be like I'm really I'm
really good at figuring this out, figuring this sun, figuring

(27:19):
this out, but I might not realize that you have
to turn the stovetop off after you use it, or
I might be so in my head like excited and
stuff that I miss something that an adult would catch,
and then accidents happen. But instead of the adults being
mindful of the whole picture, they'll just get focused on
you started a fire, you fucked up the ornaments, You're

(27:42):
just trying to start shit or be a pain in
my ass, instead of being inquisitive about how did it
get here?

Speaker 2 (27:50):
Yep, And another dynamic to factor in is that a
youngest gifted child is going to be observing and vicariously
learnlearning at a much faster rate than the kids that
we're just watching adults. He's going to be watching all
of the older siblings do all of the things, but

(28:12):
he will lack the insight to know what he can't
do or catch all of the nuance in details. Turning
on the stove, he'll figure that out, may not figure
out you have to turn it off, or may turn
the gas on without understanding how to turn the ignitoor
on because he knows you turn that knob. And I
think it's really critical to recognize just biologically speaking, the

(28:35):
prefrontal cortex that is responsible for logical thought isn't fully
online or developed until kids are ten. They are not
capable of understanding things the way adults do. They just aren't.
And it's still going to be a lot of here
in the now decision making. These are my needs, this

(28:58):
is what I want? Why can't I have it? They
will start to understand by first grade a lot more
and each grade from there, but not till they're ten
does it really start to click. And you really have
to be mindful of how you're parenting a youngest child,
especially a clever one, because you're going to think they
understand because all the other kids understand, but that one

(29:21):
doesn't yet and nothing can change that. It's not anything
they're doing wrong. They're just not there yet. That's it.
You have to maintain empathy for that and respond to
the emotional needs of that child period.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
Yeah, it does make me curious about why Kevin so
much younger than the teenagers, kind of the whole backstory
of the parents where they kind of like done parenting
and then they had a noopsie baby and he's too
much for them to handle. I think that's also hard too,
when the youngest is just a kid that needs more
than maybe the other kids needed, and the parents are
already like tapped out energetically by that kid. And it's

(29:58):
not that kid's fault. You chose to bring that kid
in the world. You need to show up for them.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
Every kid is different, and no matter what you think
you know from one child, the next one will be
a whole basket of new challenges.

Speaker 4 (30:10):
Yeah, and how did Buzz get the way he is?

Speaker 3 (30:12):
That's what I want to know, because Buzz and so
and I don't think Buzz is the oldest.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
I think the oldest dead girl, the dark haired, the
tall girl who's put in charge of the count, the
one who's putting.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
She's the one whose dad lives in Paris. Oh, you know,
it's hard to keep track of all this. I was
telling Hannah when we started watching it today. I was like,
I've never really tried to identify who's a sibling and
who's a cousin. And that might be a little rough.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
They tell you in the beginning, and they're talking to
that's how we figured j Yeah, that's how we figured
it out.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
Yeah, the oldest daughter is the one on the couch
in Paris who's talking to Buzz, And she's like, Kevin
is so little.

Speaker 4 (30:53):
I hope he's okay, and Buzz is like, hilly, fine, all.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
Right, Well let's take another break here and be back
to talk about holidays and families. All right, So, Ben,
I know this is something you really wanted to make
sure we talked about holiday stress.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
Holidays stress is definitely something that I want to talk
about in a holiday episode, because, like this movie shows,
holiday stress can manifest itself in all kinds of ways.
And this brilliant Little Kids Movie found a way to
highlight a great deal of it. They highlight the panic

(31:33):
and nonsense of having so very many people around, and
how that can introduce chaos and deregulate everyone, how much
that can cause all of us to go into kind
of a dissociated state, trying to survive and get everywhere
and do everything and take on more than we can

(31:53):
or more than we can reasonally do, and then whatever
dynamics exist in families and within the self get exact
surbated in usually the least convenient ways. People get stressed,
and they get stupid, they start making mistakes. It happens
to all of us when we're around the holidays. The
pressure we put on ourselves to be everywhere and do

(32:15):
everything and be everything for everyone and make perfect recipes
just like Grandma is immense, plus the financial strain. In
this movie, they manage to cover all of that, plus estrangement,
plus a grief and loss, and also the way people
sometimes retreat into other activities to cover that up. Pretty

(32:39):
incredible film.

Speaker 1 (32:41):
Well, when you say dissociate, Ben in this context, I
think it could be helpful to explain that a little
bit more, because I think the typical understanding of dissociation
is from more of the trauma perspective of like not
being present mentally because you're going through something really into
densely triggering. So when you use the word associate in

(33:03):
this context, what do you mean when.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
I use the word dissociate and talk about the process
of dissociation. It's really important to highlight that dissociation is
a dynamic process that goes on throughout whatever we're dealing with.
It helps us to compartmentalize our life. It helps us
to operate in the different modes that we need to
to survive the different areas of our life. And sometimes

(33:27):
that throws us into a hyperdrive or a partial shutdown,
so a hyper arousal or a hypo arousal. If you
think about it, I guess in a three tiered system
where you have your window of tolerance where normal stress,
I don't need to dissociate because I've got it. Whatever
is happening is I'm enough to handle. I am resourced

(33:49):
against the level of stress I'm going to face. However,
once that line is tipped from beyond what we can handle,
then we're going to start to compartmentalize different parts of ourself.
So that we can run either hyper drive or hypo drive,
meaning go way above and into a level of alert

(34:10):
that we need to be or way below because everything
that's going on is too much and we're getting overwhelmed
and we have to start shutting some out. Oftentimes you
see the hallmarks of this. People that are just going, going, going, going, going, going,
going going, are in some kind of hyper arousal state.
People that can just do everything and keep track of everything.
But then they come home and they're fucking done. They

(34:34):
can't take in any more information, they can't deal with
anybody else's anything, They don't talk to anybody about anything.
They have now gone from a hyper estate to a
hypo state. Hyper allows you to engage to deal with
whatever it is that's causing stress, strain, threat, etc. Hypo
helps you deal with there is no way out of

(34:55):
whatever I am, or the best option for me is
to avoid and hide everything, so I will talk to
no one about nothing. So dissociation is what you start
to do when you move outside of your window of
tolerance and into a hyper or a hypostate to survive
the level of strain and stress you have on you

(35:15):
at a moment.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
So what you're saying, is when they wake up and
they realize that the alarm never went off and that
they have to go, go, go, go go, because they're
forty five minutes out from their plane taking off. That
would be a stage of them being in dissociation.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
They're absolutely dissociated. They can't focus on anything else. They
go into hyper focus. They start ignoring details aren't relevant.
And one of the things that is also brilliant about
this film is that when you calm back down and
get back into your window of tolerance, that's when you'll
start wondering, what the fuck did I forget while I

(35:54):
was bananas. Yeah, the conversation between the mom and the
dad when they realize Kevin's gone is what happens because
you go into what's called split brain processing. When you
start dissociating, your logical side of the brain, which was
on the left. Fun fact, is starting to record everything
that's going on so you can go back and process later.

(36:15):
But that's not what you're using to survive. You're using
the right side of your brain, which is where your
emotions and response system is. Because you're late to the
airport and you gotta go, you just have to trust
your instinct that you already packed everything. Everything you see
and whatever you see, that's what's coming along. And guess
who they didn't see.

Speaker 4 (36:34):
Yeah, because they shoved them up in the attic.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
Right, they didn't see Kevin. So none of the response
that would have normally triggered to get Kevin in the
car happened. They were so stressed up they went, you,
oldest child, you count everybody and make sure that this
is and that's good enough. I'm solving this problem.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
Well, to be on her side, she did count the
appropriate eleve number of heads. They just weren't anticipating a
weird neighbor to be up in the van who also
had the same coat and hat as in the same height,
and the same going through and going through their suitcases.
So well, of course she would assume that someone that
belongs to us, of course, not a kid that has
the audacity to go through a stranger's things.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
I'm not blaming that. It's the parents. You know, the
parents didn't wake up on time and therefore freaked out
went into hyper arousal. We're not properly processing at the
rate at which I assume they normally would have.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
Yeah, because you know that mom was standing on the
sit on that plane, and she was like, hold up,
I wasn't annoyed all morning by Kevin's mouth. She finally
realized the absence of the obnoxiousness that is Kevin, because
I'm sure she's like, oh, I haven't heard about from
Kevin all day and Kevin can't shut the fuck up?

Speaker 2 (37:50):
Right? How many times have any of us totally needed
one piece of paper, let's say, to go to the DMV,
for example, and had it in our hand the entire
time until you get to the fucking DMV and you
realize that the one piece of paper that totally proves
your identity because the piece of mail they sent you
that comes to your house that is in your hand

(38:13):
doesn't count as mail. You had it in your hand
and thought about it the whole time, and then you
get there and you realize where is it on the counter?

Speaker 1 (38:24):
And that's something I also want to point out, which
could just be very nineteen ninety, is how much the
mom holds all the stress in this movie, like she's
the one being comforted once they realize that Kevin's gone.
She's the one that seems to do all the in
my opinion, appropriate level of freaking out and of trying

(38:46):
to make it happen. I get to the other kids,
and the dad kind of took the mantle of like,
I'll be with the other kids. But I guess it's
just something I wanted to point out as well, of
like the gendered expectation of who bears the brunt of
something like this happening, and how that also adds to
the stress that probably leads to her being the more
dissociative of the two once they realize Kevin's gone.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
Right, So, speaking on that, I don't disagree the character
characterization of the dad exists to show nineties dynamics, no doubt. Yeah,
and the parenting brunt clearly falls largely on her, no doubt.
I don't have any disagreements with that. Looking at it
in the lens of the psychology, we see an alternative explanation,

(39:34):
while not dismissing his disconnectedness, is that Mom is showing
hallmark signs of dissociation because she's about to lose her
everloving shit, which is appropriate and understandable. I cannot imagine
the feeling of realizing you left your child who is
eight home by themselves while you're in another country and

(39:57):
cannot immediately get to them.

Speaker 4 (39:59):
You're across the an ocean.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
Yeah, and there is no way back. That's you can't
just drive home. I mean, I think this's the emotional
impact of this movie is every parent and any anyone
can identify that stomach drop of like, oh God. But
Mom is trying to contain herself and her dissociation is
preventing her from entering a freak out that's just going

(40:21):
to get her arrested and further away from her kid
or whatever else is going to add more problems to
the situation that she just cannot afford. She has to
keep it together and keep herself contained. She cannot engage
that freak out part that very much is breaking on
the surface. Dad, on the other hand, is completely disconnected

(40:42):
from all of that and is trying to go into
this operational motive. I have to keep everyone together and
keep this night. We are in a foreign country. We
need to do it this way. We have to do
this way, which he isn't wrong on, but the lack
of emotional response he's showing could be attributed to we
are in a crisis situation and we have to solve it.

(41:02):
And he has a little more resource to that. With
whatever it is that he does, they can afford that
big ass house.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
Well, their brother, the Paris brother, which I never realized
till this watching either the brother that lives in Paris,
the uncle thills in Paris. He paid yeah for the trip. Hey,
the big old house though, for sure?

Speaker 2 (41:19):
Well right, but whatever it is, the dad is showing
some resource against stress, and well, again, I agree, he's
kind of disconnected that. Another way to look at that, though,
is that sometimes in critical moments, when you're encountering the

(41:40):
scariest things, people do not always behave in ways that
you think they will. People don't always react immediately because
they're not sure. They're so overloaded, they're just trying to
survive right now, so they're not able to freak out.
At that moment. When people are informed loved ones have
died or that something happened or something has happens to them,

(42:00):
sometimes they look oddly calm and they're just kind of
like the dad is in this movie, like Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool,
this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna solve this,
we're gonna get And then when it comes down or
it becomes safe for them to turn back on. Then
they're gonna go, what the fuck happened? How did that?
They're gonna lose their shit somewhere else, But when it's

(42:21):
not safe for them to lose their shit in that moment,
they won't. So it's important to acknowledge the absolutely characterization
of this movie. It's pretty stereotypical, but it's not uncommon
to see people do that either of going Okay, we
have to solve this problem right now, and we will
freak out at a later point. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 4 (42:38):
Anything you want to add, Hannah, I think.

Speaker 3 (42:40):
It really is typical of the nineties movie that the
dad is as disconnected as he is, because seemingly with
the relationship that he seems to have with the other kids,
it seems like he might be a little bit more involved.
But I feel like we just don't see that very much.
But also because the story is not really about him,
I feel like so. But I think holiday stress, between
getting the place you're supposed to be and bringing all

(43:04):
the things with you, and then you also have to
worry about the family dynamics when you get there, Holiday
stress is definitely something that makes people not act like
themselves and lots of different ways.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
Also highlights the things that were broken long ago.

Speaker 3 (43:20):
Yeah, for sure, for sure, because there's always going to
be a tense moment when the person that everybody's been
waiting for to blow up at dinner finally does blow up.
Like there's always something that we're kind of waiting for
to happen thinking about that there No, I'm thinking about
my family, oddly enough. There's just so many different things

(43:43):
that people can get just really freaked out about during
the holidays, And I know that it's something that as
a therapist, when we work with people, we always are
talking about families and what it's going to be like
to go home during this time, and how the dynamics
of a family really are highlighted because everyone is more
stressed out.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
And there's also the stress and pressure to have a
fantastic time. Yes, there's a lot of steaks put on
the holidays that can amp up the stress that you
sometimes have to spend the holidays with people that you
really don't like, but you are supposed to like because
they're related to you, or they're married to someone that's

(44:25):
related to you. So being put into a contained situation
with someone like uncle Frank, who you probably wouldn't pick
to hang out with if you weren't related, to put
up with everybody, get everything organized, and then to pull
it off. Like there's so much pressure involved in all

(44:46):
of that that can also make holidays stress bananas. And
I don't think a lot of people ask themselves enough why.

Speaker 2 (44:55):
Am I doing this?

Speaker 1 (44:57):
Where is the stress coming from a making these plans?
Why are the stakes feel so high? Why do we
feel like we need to force something out of this situation?
Which I think leads to sort of like the more
modern phenomenon, if you will, that's going on right now,
which is people putting up more boundaries with their families,
and that can include holidays, Oh yeah, and not being

(45:21):
received well understandably so by everybody. But I think more
people are asking themselves these questions we're talking about, which
is why am I going along with these ideas, these
expectations that I've never maybe been introspective about. And then
once you start being introspective about those things, it's hard
to stop.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
It's very hard. And I think it's been the generational
divide between what boomers expect, the way that the exers
and the elder millennials were trained to deal with Uncle
Frank's and to just put up with them and keep
inviting them even though they routinely ruin everything by being

(46:01):
a jerk and they're the person that blows up or
makes something bad every time. Whereas now you're seeing Z's
and millennials as a whole kind of taking a movement
of your fuck Uncle Frank.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
Yeah, he doesn't get to be invited over just because
he's related.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
Yep, yep. As we have our own houses and our
own things, we're seeing over and over Millennials take control
of holidays and rest the control back to reform holidays
in a way that does bring joy and emotional safety
or just calm. They're protecting their peace and it is

(46:41):
something that they are no longer willing to sacrifice just
because somebody says so. Because they are family that we
see once a year, but every time we see them
it sucks. So why am I seeing drunk Uncle Frank?

Speaker 1 (46:54):
Yeah, because it makes me even go back to what
we were talking about earlier with Kevin, where a lot
of hims and family systems like this, where the priority
is to keep everything nice and the same and the same.
Is that a kid like Kevin will be centered in
terms of don't cause any problems, because if we try

(47:17):
to go at uncle Frank, it will fuck with a
dynamic too much. It will cause a level of discomfort
we can't tolerate and what we will do to maintain
status quo, especially in like white, upper middle class, waspy
sort of dynamics.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Oh girl, there's no upper middle in this story. Upper
upper Yeah, that's true. That's true.

Speaker 4 (47:43):
Even though Frank's so cheap.

Speaker 1 (47:44):
That's also not uncommon, right for like certain kids to
get the brunt of the problems in the family, because
we don't want to upset this level of comfort that
we've all decided to be fine with, Like we're more
comfortable with Frank being an asshole to our kids and
everyone acting like that's fine then really addressing what's going on,

(48:07):
because it's a level of uncomfortable that's not nice and polite, because.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
People are cowards.

Speaker 3 (48:13):
They are people are freaking cowards, and they won't talk
about hard shit and they won't bring it up because
it is too uncomfortable, And especially when we talk about
Midwest nice, it certainly is a part of that. I mean,
it certainly is like my mother's family just pretends like
everything's fine and like nothing is going on, and there's
been all different kinds of shit going on for literally decades.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
And because we've always it's like the adherence to the tradition. Yes, yes,
that's a good way to put it. That is a
good way to say, more important than adherence to your
own emotional needs.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
Or actually, it's actually feeling good, because I think this
is actually a great segue into the other part of this,
which is old Man Marley and his dynamic with his
So let's take a break here and we'll.

Speaker 4 (49:01):
Be right back to talk about that.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
What's interesting about where we're going with this is old
Man Marley is kind of an example of this right
where he and his son had it out and did
that classic if you walk away, I'm never gonna talk
to you again, think I don't want anything to do
with you. And then they actually unfortunately stood by that
both of them and neither of them will be the
one to break that seal up to that point in

(49:29):
the movie. I think that's also something we can build
from what we're talking about, where if we never address hard,
uncomfortable things, then we have no script and no understanding
of how to talk about hard things, and because it's
an unknown, we will allow ourselves to sit in the

(49:53):
comfort of never dealing with it and just being alone.
Then deal with the discomfort and fear of trying something different,
because what he says in the movie is I'm afraid
if I call him. You know, the old man says
about his son, I'm afraid if I call my son,
he won't talk to me. And sweet little Kevin and
his infinite wisdom says, well, if you just do it,

(50:17):
then you'll know for sure whether he won't talk to
you or not, and then you can just figure out
how to deal from.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
There, which is the most brilliant line of this film.
We honestly therapy in a nutshell. Stop giving the anxiety power.
You'll know what to do with it if it's a
yes or no, But if it's a maybe, it has
power because you don't know what to do with it.
Once you get a yes or a no, you will
either resume the relationship or you can grieve it. But

(50:43):
if you give it, then maybe it continues to exist
in this powerful awfulness that makes you feel gripped with fear,
in action and indecision and stripped of all your resources.
It's terrible. Welcome to anxiety, one oh one, here's how
you defeat it.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
It's such a class example of how we, unfortunately will
prefer to stay in this horrible limbo state where any
possible thing is true, instead of taking a little bit
of courage and just seeing what will happen and then

(51:21):
going from there.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
Yeah, because cutoffs in families become patterns. So let's say
Marley and his son never patch up anything, and they
maintain the estrangement until the father dies. There is a
higher chance that that son will do the same thing
to his son.

Speaker 4 (51:40):
Because it's more normalized.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
Because it's more normalized and cutoffs.

Speaker 3 (51:44):
In families when you do a genogram, a genogram is
essentially a map of the types of relationships that exist
in your family, whether it's a sibling or an anne
or uncle. Kind of encapsulates all of the different types
of relationships in this world on diagram that you learn
how to fill out when you get trained as a
marriage and family therapist. And one of the patterns that

(52:06):
we're supposed to look out for is cutoffs and relationships
when people stop talking to each other and the relationship
is null and void from then on. When you start
to notice in families that they have these big cutoffs
that happen, they tend to happen generations later as well,
because once one son doesn't know how to not have

(52:27):
that relationship with their kid, who is going to learn
the person who's having it done to them or the
person who is doing it.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
Because to be able to communicate through a big emotional
fallout of some sort and really talk your way through it,
that is a skill, and it's a skill that requires
a level of emotional intelligence that not everybody has innately, yeah,
but can be taught.

Speaker 4 (52:56):
If you are willing to learn.

Speaker 1 (52:59):
Exactly everybody, as you know as a family therapist, not
everybody's willing to learn because of fear or pride or
anxiety or ego or.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
Whatever, exactly all of those versus values.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
Because I think what is prognostically positive about old man
Marley is that he doesn't seem to have pride or
ego caught up in it. It just seems scared, yes,
and doesn't know what to do, doesn't know how to
start the conversation.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
So he seems like he.

Speaker 4 (53:30):
Just has a lack of knowing what to do Versus.

Speaker 1 (53:35):
I won't bring myself down to apologizing to my kid,
or to do any of the repair work that's needed
to get through emotional riff like that. You have to
be able to acknowledge what you've done to move through it,
whether you meant to or not. That's where a lot
of people get hung up to. As I'm sure you
both know, is like intent versus impact. I didn't mean

(53:57):
to blop blah blah, shut up. Whether you meant to
or not is irrelevant. This is what happens. You did
something that cause an impact, and that's what's important. Go ahead, Hannah,
and how you make somebody feels important because that's what
they fucking remember.

Speaker 2 (54:13):
Sure is. And when people get older into that Ericsonian
stage of ego integrity versus despair, this is the conflict.
This is exactly it. This is what causes it. Why
I mentioned values as the counter to those other things
we're talking about of ego or a culturation, all of
that versus the values you have of what does it

(54:35):
mean if I'm associating with this kind of person or not?
Or if I let the sin, does that make me weak?
Or whatever it is? However, they learn to value that.
I can't let my son who's selling drugs continue to
be in my life or otherwise I'm a criminal too.
That's kind of how the values question goes. Once people
get to older age sixty five plus, they start to

(54:58):
struggle with this ego integrity versus despair, which is basically
what am I holding onto?

Speaker 1 (55:05):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (55:05):
And does it still mean anything to me? Or am
I fucking lonely and sad because of my failures or
because my relationships are broken? And sometimes when they fail
that struggle, they continue holding on to things that once
may have meant something but no longer do at this age,
whether it's family grudges or arguments, or how they should

(55:26):
have felt about their son standing up to them and
running their smart mouth and that's disrespectful to your father
or to your mother or whatever. Instead of realizing it
has been years, you are lonely, this is your child,
and if you don't heal the rift with them, there
will be nothing but loneliness. And that is where we

(55:48):
see Martley struggling with and he whatever thing that it
was that him and his son fought about. You see
him kind of expressing to Kevin, it didn't even matter
because I can't even remember I can't even remember, I
don't even know what it is, or he just it
wasn't appropriate to talk about, which I got.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
I thought he did a brilliant job of having an
appropriate conversation of telling a child the truth without telling
them details they didn't need.

Speaker 4 (56:20):
Yeah, keeping it simple.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
Yeah, But he clearly is exactly in that phase where
he's saying that stuff doesn't even matter. But I'm just
I'm afraid now that I'll feel condemned to my loneliness.
And right now I can hold onto the idea of
maybe it won't be, but if I face it, I'll
for sure be in despair. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
And what I do actually really like that is kind
of unique with in this movie, if you really think
about it, is that the father, the older person, reaches
out to the son and he's the one that makes
the phone call, and as you see in the movie,
it works out right away.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
And I think that's actually not that whimsical.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
I think a lot of times in situations like this,
sometimes people are waiting for the other person to finally
reach out, and then as soon as they do, people
can be very quick to forgive. Actually, I like seeing
that in this movie, and I like that it disrupts
the idea that I think we're also seeing now more
frequently with these boundaries we're talking about, is the older
generation feeling like they are not supposed to be the

(57:25):
ones that make the first move to reconciliation, that the kids,
the younger generation has to be the one that reaches out,
maybe even like gravels ask for forgiveness or they say
this is how I'll change in. The older person just
gets to like take advantage of that and they don't
have to.

Speaker 4 (57:44):
Do any work.

Speaker 1 (57:45):
So I really hope that when people watch this they
take away from it that the older person is the
one who shows humility by reaching out and probably saying
I'm sorry, it's not important to me, and like you're
saying too ben Like, when I do this kind of
in sessions with clients, I will talk about values, yeah,
and I say it sounds like you value family. Are

(58:06):
your behaviors matching that value or actually going farther away
from it? And once you hook it into values, it
can be really hard to reason with yourself about why
you're doing what you're doing, To look at yourself in
the mirror and be like, oh, I'm actually prioritizing my
pride or my anxiety or whatever over my family, and
does that feel good to say out loud and to

(58:28):
really really actually acknowledge it.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
That feels shitty.

Speaker 1 (58:31):
Usually it feels shitty, and that can be what motivates
us to push through whatever barriers are in the way
if we can get there.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
The other component of that, with all of those being
right and important, is that it's also equally important to
re examine values at various stages of life, because unevaluated
ones are attached to emotions, and the way our memories
get stored is that what can happen is that sometimes

(59:01):
when we get emotionally overwhelmed, all of the values that
were developmentally present for us at the time that overwhelm
happened can persist in our memories and get activated when
we remember it again later in life, and that can
draw us back to no, fuck that person, because they
made me feel this way and they shouldn't do that,

(59:22):
and that's wrong without recognizing that may have been fifteen
years ago, failing to recognize you, and they have grown
a lot in fifteen years and transcended different stages of
life yourself to where whatever mattered to you then may
not anymore instead of like looking at people like Uncle

(59:45):
Rico from I know, man, it's uncle Rico because it
connects to me as an old football player, but not
in the same way of like seeing people at are stuck, right,
people that still think, you know, you can go back
and repair that rift. Yeah, but Uncle Rico or Albano
al Bundy. Yeah, I keep taking it like it's not Ted.

(01:00:07):
It's not Ted, it's not Ted, So of course what
I want to say Ted, Yeah, but al Bundy, like
I threw four touchdowns. Sometimes people get stuck in certain
parts of their identity that no longer have any relevance,
but they still adhere to it. People that were in
the military sometimes become part of this like, well, I
still have this value and I still believe. But that's

(01:00:28):
not the same anymore in your life. And while it
was important then and can still be part of who
you are now, that doesn't have to govern what makes
you happy at this phase in your life. And just
because it would have been wrong for somebody to do
that then doesn't mean you need to continue to cause
that estrangement now because they aren't the same person you're

(01:00:50):
remembering them being, and they probably don't make you feel
that same way now. But if you only have the
memory to contend with, you have nothing in the present
to overwrite that file and tell you it's okay and safe.
To let that feeling go. That's part of what helps
us relax, recover, and feel resourced against things going okay, Well,

(01:01:14):
if that does happen, I don't know what to do,
But since I don't need to do that anymore, I
can let that go. Many people have gone to high
school reunions and found their old bullies and talked to
them and like figured some stuff out without the need
to motherfuck them up and down because they realized, like, okay,
well we were kids then, you know, yeah, I do.

Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
I don't go to reunions neither.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
I don't know our generation will go to any unions
because we don't have to because we can see what
everybody's doing and it doesn't matter. Thanks social media. Yeah,
all right.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
Is there more we want to talk about in terms
of estrangement, families and the holidays?

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
I think last thing I want to say on it
is I am a fan of the millennial movement to
not continue to adhere to to that don't provide value,
And I'm also not a fan of the over protective
cutoffs that millennials and below are doing. I think there's
a middle somewhere, and you may need to cut off

(01:02:14):
for a while, or you may need to not go
for a while, but don't let that become a pattern
that persists forever and cuts you off from all your family,
and that that's what you have to do.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
Yeah, I think we're in a pendulum shift right now,
which makes sense where people are going the whole other
direction to try to figure out what the happy medium
is or what's a healthy medium is eventually, because you're right,
there is this I think pushback right now, which I
did want to make sure to say too that just
because someone's your family doesn't mean that you have to
put up with stuff Nope, and that you have to

(01:02:46):
adhere to the value of family doesn't mean that you
are putting up with your blood relations if they are
treating you in such a way that is not okay. Yeah,
So that's all I wanted to say.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
Right you can keep your value, but find a healthy
way to express it and identify with it at this
phase in your life.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
Because, like we said, with this, I think why the
old man Marley thing works is because he demonstrates he
models that humility and love and value first.

Speaker 3 (01:03:17):
And something that we've talked about so much already on
the podcast is also he was vulnerable. Oh yeah, Hm,
you have to be in a lot of ways in
order to connect with someone, especially if someone we're estrange
from being able to feel connected to them.

Speaker 4 (01:03:33):
Well, you got to be vulnerable.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
You have to be generous, and you have to be
clear about what you want moving.

Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
Forward, and you have to take accountability for what was
your fault. That's the hugest one is you can't continue
blaming someone else for your behavior.

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
And apologizing and saying some version of well my parent,
my dad is not a good reason, and you cannot
take advantage of that so that people don't hold you
acountable for your own shit. Yeah, and I think a
lot of people fall in that a lot. That's something
I've seen watching family therapy is well, it's okay that
I scream at my kid because my dad hit me,
and it's like, okay, well, I mean I'm glad that

(01:04:14):
you toned it down, but an explanation is not an excuse.

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
Yeah, So we.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
Will take a break here and we will be write
back with treatment. So I can put you on the spot, Hannah,
since you're going to talk about what we've been just
discussing as part of your treatment, if you don't mind
going ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
Yeah, of course.

Speaker 3 (01:04:32):
So since we just talked about old man Marley and
his son, that's who I'm going to do treatment with.
And I'm sure no one will be surprised that I'll
be talking a little bit about the couple's dialogue.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
So when I work with.

Speaker 3 (01:04:45):
Families where there is an estrangement, something that is really
important to establish with them in the beginning is what
is the goal?

Speaker 4 (01:04:56):
Mm?

Speaker 3 (01:04:56):
Yeah, having a goal when their relationshi has been a
strange for a certain amount of years, really can show
that both people are on the same page. Because often
when people come in to get help like this, where
maybe they have kind of reconnected, but their same patterns
of old communication is coming up somehow, or old patterns

(01:05:19):
of behavior comes up somehow, And so I see them
coming into my office and really wanting to be able
to process what happened, because neither one of them can
really stop thinking about it, and they both feel uncomfortable
about talking about it to each other. And so one
of the important things really is what is the goal?

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
Because if the goal is that you have to.

Speaker 3 (01:05:42):
Be forgiven in order to have a communication or a relationship,
then that would have to be the goal for both people.
It can't just be that You're going to say I'm
sorry and then I'm going to finally feel vindicated, right.
The goal has to be something that is valuable to
both people. And so when working with them, something that

(01:06:04):
I would make sure to talk to them about is communication,
because how we communicate and what we communicate also is
a way that we set boundaries and relationships, and so
having a relationship where we have boundaries that help us
feel more connected to each other but also more protected
at the same time.

Speaker 2 (01:06:22):
And so I would definitely teach them the couple's dialogue.

Speaker 3 (01:06:25):
I've talked about the couple's dialogue and a couple different episodes,
just going to give you a brief rundown of what
that looks like. The reason why I teach the couple's
dialogue to families and couples and really anybody who has
the second party that they need to discuss things with
is because the couple's dialogue is about how you feel

(01:06:46):
and your emotions, and it's how we treat each other.
That has the biggest impact and how we make someone feel.
So that's why I use the couple's dialogue because it
isn't about who forgot the ads, and it's not about
you didn't come to my baseball game when I was eight.
It's about so many other different aspects to a relationship

(01:07:08):
and so and communication is such a big hallmark of
all of the connectedness that we can.

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
Feel with someone.

Speaker 3 (01:07:14):
Basically with the couple's dialogue is you have a listener
and you have a speaker. The speaker doesn't have to
do anything besides USI statements. The listener has a whole
stretch of things that they have to do.

Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
So a part of being.

Speaker 3 (01:07:27):
The listener, and a part of the reason why the
listener role is so important and has so many rules,
is because the way that we normally argue in real
life is we're always thinking about the next thing that
we want.

Speaker 4 (01:07:38):
To say, waiting for your turn to talk, waiting for.

Speaker 3 (01:07:40):
Your turn to talk. And when I teach the couple's dialogue,
this is not like that at all. You have to
really be tuned into what your partner is saying. Because
the first step is mirroring and mirroring can be very simple.

Speaker 2 (01:07:53):
It can be I am.

Speaker 3 (01:07:55):
Upset at you because you forgot the eggs. So what
I'm hearing is that you're upset because I forgot the eggs.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
Is that right? Yes? Is there more?

Speaker 3 (01:08:04):
Sometimes when you forget the eggs, it makes me feel
like you don't think about me.

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
So what I'm hearing you say is that sometimes when
you when I forget the eggs, that I'm not thinking
about you.

Speaker 4 (01:08:17):
Is that right?

Speaker 2 (01:08:18):
Yes? That's right?

Speaker 4 (01:08:19):
Is there more?

Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
No?

Speaker 3 (01:08:23):
So then the second step, after you do the mirroring,
and once the person says there isn't anything else, then
you move on to validating. All validating is this, I
understand that.

Speaker 2 (01:08:37):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
I understand why me forgetting the eggs would make you
feel that way. Yes, boom, And then I say, did
I get that right?

Speaker 2 (01:08:44):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (01:08:45):
Is there more?

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
We don't do that with validation, okay, So you don't
do the part that's okay. Just the feeling exists and
is okay to exist as it is. Exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:08:58):
Validating is not agreeing. Validating is literally just saying I
understand that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:09:05):
The question I get a lot of times. What I'm
teaching this is what if I don't really understand, then
you haven't done the mirroring enough to get an understanding,
so that when you say I understand, you actually fucking
understand and.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
You mean that you understand, and you get the point,
because if you don't and you act like you do,
you will fuck it up later, Yeah, and the trust
will erode.

Speaker 3 (01:09:33):
The third step is called empathize. The third step is
where you pick two feelings that you think your partner
might be feeling. That either can be something that they
literally said, I feel upset when you forget to bring
home the eggs.

Speaker 2 (01:09:48):
Can be you must be feeling upset.

Speaker 3 (01:09:50):
So empathizing is that must make you feel scared, upset, frustrated.

Speaker 1 (01:09:57):
Yeah, so in this example, I might say, is the
list you must feel disappointed and unseen when I forget
the eggs? Yes?

Speaker 4 (01:10:10):
Is that right?

Speaker 2 (01:10:11):
That is right?

Speaker 3 (01:10:12):
So then that's one person going at the end of that,
then you do the person who was the listener is
now the speaker, and now they get a chance to
respond with maybe something like I didn't know that you
felt like I don't think about you, And then that's
how the next sets gets started, and then.

Speaker 2 (01:10:30):
You go through the three steps.

Speaker 4 (01:10:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:33):
So that's what the couple's dialogue is.

Speaker 3 (01:10:36):
That's what I would teach Marley and his son to
be able to try to find a way to communicate
in the present moment instead of going back and hashing
out every single thing that happened. First, We're going to
start with them having a new experience together so that
they're both present for it, and also so we can
create a new memory where they both feel heard and

(01:10:56):
seen by the other person.

Speaker 1 (01:10:58):
And that they're showing an effort. Absolutely, absolutely, because I
think what I really like about couple's dialogue is that
the person who's listening, especially if they're getting feedback about
themselves from the share, is that they have to really
swallow their ego and not get in their defensive self truly,
and that can show a lot of goodwill to the

(01:11:19):
other person that I am dedicated to, like not maybe
repeating an old pattern where I'm getting really defensive and
then I invalidate you because I prioritize my feelings and YadA, YadA, YadA.

Speaker 3 (01:11:32):
Which is why the most important part of the Couple's
dialogue is asking in the beginning, is it a good
time to talk? Because if you are both pissed trying
to do mirroring, validation and empathizing is going to blow
up in your fucking face so fast you won't know
what happened. It has to be a good time. You
both have to be not escalated or dissociated about something.

(01:11:54):
If you can't do that, then the answer to can
we talk is no, Let's make a plan.

Speaker 2 (01:12:00):
Let's make a plan. Can we try to talk tomorrow?
Because if somebody's dissociated and you pop that bubble, let's
say they're a hypo aroused state. They are creeping themselves cool,
so they don't flay your skin and roll you in salt,
and you pop the bubble, guess what's gonna happen. They're
gonna blow up. They're gonna flay your skin, They're gonna

(01:12:20):
roll you in salt because you pressed on them when
they told you know, or if they didn't realize it
and they weren't calm yet but they had been in
a hyper aroused state to nope, I will kill everybody
here if I think about this long enough. You need
to give people time and space to be out of
all of those places and back to baseline in window

(01:12:42):
of tolerance zone.

Speaker 1 (01:12:43):
Is there anything else that you want to bring up
that you would do with Marley and his son.

Speaker 3 (01:12:48):
No, I really feel like this would be a case
where I would call maybe like ten or twelve sessions
I think would be really helpful to help get them
through some of their communication. But that I think this
would be something that would be maybe like a shorter
term therapy because it's about one specific thing and they're
both willing and open to talk about it and work
on it. So when I have both people have buy in,

(01:13:11):
then I think that that really helps their prognosis in
terms of them being able to use the skill outside
of a therapy setting.

Speaker 2 (01:13:17):
Oh, for sure, yep. And I think the augment I
want to add to what Hannah is saying is remembering
that couple's dialogue can create a relaxed muscle body by
showing someone, not telling them, showing them that you are
in a different place and willing to be safe with
their feelings. Now you're going to have to stay there

(01:13:40):
if you would like that to go in a forward direction,
showing you're also over the fight. Both father and son
here will need to show to each other that the
old fight really doesn't matter. It's not a trap. Yeah. Absolutely, Oh,
let's take a break. Care me right back.

Speaker 1 (01:14:00):
I can jump on what you're saying, Hanah, because I'm
going to do family therapy as well.

Speaker 4 (01:14:04):
Obviously as the child therapist.

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
I'm gonna work with Kevin and his parents because this
is a dynamic. Unfortunately, I have seen quite a bit
when I used to work exclusively with kids and kids
that would be deemed a behavioral problem. So I could
see maybe if this whole home alone situation hasn't happened,
and Kevin keeps having behavioral problems where he might be

(01:14:28):
misunderstood as someone maybe even with like conduct disorder, with
like the lighting fires and the destructiveness and the defiance
and argumentativeness. You know, I could see it getting to
a head where they might go to a therapist like me,
maybe not in nineteen ninety, but maybe nowadays and come
in loaded with this idea of like how do we
deal with a kid like Kevin? And then so my

(01:14:49):
job as a therapist would be to one do psycho.

Speaker 4 (01:14:51):
Education, which is.

Speaker 1 (01:14:55):
Maybe schooling the parents a bit on what is the
dynamic at home? What are you expl him, what is
your goal? I wouldn't be shocked if his parents had
the goal that a lot of parents and guardians used
to have with me, which is I want them to
behave I want them to mind me.

Speaker 4 (01:15:09):
Actually specifically, what I used to hear a lot, and.

Speaker 1 (01:15:12):
I would say, that's not my job to This isn't
dog training school to make your kid heal, And especially
with a kid that's that's as smart as Kevin, they
just figure out how to work the system. And so
with Kevin, well, one I'd want to make sure he
got assessed for ADHD just in case. And then two,

(01:15:35):
i'd really I would hope that we would gain awareness
of like how smart he is. I would probably have
to do psycho with the parents too about that about
like gifted kids and how they can become bored and
behavioral issues YadA YadA. Also, and then what I would
also express with the parents is like what's the dynamic
going on at home? How much attention is he getting?

(01:15:58):
Is he getting any positive attention? And sometimes I would
have to work in that stuff with parents. We have
to undo this cycle where your kid only gets negative
attention from you. You have to find time for them
where you spend quality time together that is not attached
at all to their behavior, and that isn't supposed to
be something lavish. I wouldn't say, like every week you
take them out to like go bowling or the movies,

(01:16:20):
no matter how he's behaved. That's not right because then
you would just teach him that it doesn't matter how
I behaved, I'll still get do something rad once a week.
It's more that maybe you still have time once a
week where you go on a walk together, or go
fishing or like do something and then like go play basketball,
something quality time related that's not flashy, that you always

(01:16:41):
do together even if the kid is misbehaving, so that
they understand that they there's an unconditional, secure attachment between
the two of you and that they don't have to
fight for your attention because they know at least once
a week, I'll have one on one time with my parents,
which is important when you have a lot of kids
and you work and all that stuff. Kids do need
that even if they're younger and they have a bunch

(01:17:02):
of people in the house, that doesn't necessarily mean that
they're getting quality time with anyone.

Speaker 2 (01:17:08):
And then two with something I.

Speaker 1 (01:17:09):
Really hated in the movie, and this is what I
would have to probably coach the parents on is when
something happens, something explosive happens, like the milk Pepsi pizza situation,
to express some curiosity for fuck's sake about what's going on.
I hated how the mom was just like shut him down,

(01:17:30):
took him upstairs.

Speaker 2 (01:17:31):
When a kid is saying something to you.

Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
Like I hate your guts, I wish my family disappeared. Well, one,
don't take it personal like she did, where she's like,
I hope you don't mean that. Maybe say it again
where you're doing like this power struggly thing with him,
especially with a smart kid, that doesn't matter. Don't get drawn, Yeah,
Like why are you arguing with an eight year old?
You look like an idiot?

Speaker 2 (01:17:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:54):
And then two, when a kid is saying something that explosive,
they're trying to communicate a feeling they're having. And this
is a lot of where we see more of that
gentle parenting nowadays. I'm not well versed enough in gentle
parenting to have a strong opinion about in either direction.
I think what I've observed about it, which could help
with this situation is getting to the crux of what's happening, Like, Hey,

(01:18:15):
how are you feeling right now? Can you help me
understand why you said that, and that does take time,
which also maybe this mom and the parents are not
doing a good job of making When you choose to
have kids, you need to make time for them. And
part of that time and effort is this stuff here
where you're not just figuring out what's going on underneath

(01:18:37):
this explosive behavior, but you're also showing him a different
way to talk about your fucking failings other than acting out.
As we've talked about from like Uncle Frank and Buzz
and whatever. All this kid has seen that we've seen
is that when you're having a big feeling, you act out,
you express it in a way that's maybe not very kind.
And what the mom had a chance to do in

(01:18:58):
that moment is model a different way to do it.
And also you can set boundaries too, Like I've had
kids say everything that you could ever anything that a
person could say to another person. A little kid has
probably said to me, including like swears and threats and
things like that. What I would sometimes say to them is, hey,
I get if you're angry.

Speaker 4 (01:19:15):
You can be angry. You can be angry with me.
We're not gonna name call like.

Speaker 1 (01:19:20):
You can still establish boundaries without dismissing a kid or
shutting them down. Like I think people don't understand there's
a sweet spot there where you can change up the
communication around and you can make it more about feelings
and communicating that and that doesn't mean that you're gonna
put up with being like defiant and oppositional. I think
that's also why sometimes people will have beef with gentle

(01:19:42):
parenting is I think the way they they look at
it is you're spoiling the kid basically, and you're letting
them do whatever they want, say whatever they want.

Speaker 2 (01:19:48):
Yeah, that's not right either.

Speaker 1 (01:19:50):
And like I said, when i'd work with kids, they
would sometimes call me like a bitch or whatever, and
they'd be like six, which is really funny, and I'd
have to try not to laugh in that sexual voice.
That'd be like you're such a and I'd be like,
oh okay, But I would say, hey, you're allowed to
be angry with me. You're allowed to whatever feeling you have,
and that does not mean you can call me that.
I'm not gonna let you call me that when you're
able to not engage in that behavior. I'm here, like

(01:20:12):
I'm not going anywhere else, So We'll be physically here
with you, but I'm not going to respond to you
until you cut that out. And so you're setting a
limit in a boundary, and you're also vouting their feelings
and you're showing them like, I'm not going to reject
you because you acted out. And I wish the mom
would have done any of that. I think what I
do like about her at the end is she does

(01:20:33):
apologize and she does say I love you and I'm sorry,
and I think that's really great.

Speaker 4 (01:20:37):
Maybe they can.

Speaker 1 (01:20:38):
Grow from that moment. Maybe this will be like a
turning point for them. But I think if that hadn't happened,
they would definitely be parents in my office where I'd
have to do a lot of this coaching and I'd
have to tell them it's going to take work. It's
going to take time. It's not going to be as
simple for you as letting him go up to his room.
Then you get to ignore him. If you want this
to stop, you're going to have to do the work
too to get him to get this to be different.

(01:20:59):
The rollercoade you guys are on, you're all on it together.
It's not just this kid's a pill and we got
to figure out how to make this kid stop being
such a fucking pill. Everybody has to do the work
of this, and that don't include fucking Buzz.

Speaker 4 (01:21:10):
I think I would also.

Speaker 1 (01:21:10):
Say I could definitely see Kevin in my office being like, yeah,
but Buzz does this and Buzz does that, and then
I might have to have a conversation with the parents
where I'm like, Kevin's brought up maybe not with Kevin present,
but I'd say Kevin's brought up this one something many times,
what's going on with that?

Speaker 4 (01:21:23):
And then I might have to do some coaching around that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:25):
And so this is a family that does seem like
they need a lot of parent coaching to understand how
to help a kid like Kevin, and they'll reframe this
idea that there's something wrong with him, that he's just
being disrespectful to be disrespectful. I've said this before, I'll
say it again. I used to say a lot when
I did family therapy like this every kid is doing
is just trying to get a need met. Everything a

(01:21:47):
kid does and says I would say everything a human
does and says, but everything especially a kid does and does,
because trying to get a need met can you be
curious about that instead of getting stuck on the behavior
that's like moot yep, that's just the language they're using
to try to talk to you. So teach them a
different language and you have to use it yourself if
you're screaming back at them, and you're like, don't yell

(01:22:08):
while you're yelling, grow up? Yeah, And also like where's
this Kate gonna learn what to do instead, all they're
seeing is this. It's like this assumption that kids will
naturally figure out a more mature way to be is
so unfair and kids are have a right to be
pissed about that.

Speaker 4 (01:22:25):
This is why I'm a Kevin apologist.

Speaker 1 (01:22:27):
I'm a behavioral kid apologist down So that's what I
would do with Kevin and his parents, And I would
make sure that dad is in that office too, not
just the mom, because this would also be a thing
that would happen a lot where like the mom shows
up to family therapy, not the dad. I'd be like,
you guys both need to be in here and maybe
even Buzz eventually, and the other siblings.

Speaker 2 (01:22:47):
So that's what I would do. I guess that leaves me.
I definitely think that Kate would be okay. The mom
would be my target person because as we watch her
throughout this film, she is so very dissociated. She is
alternating between a hyper aroused and a hypo arouse date

(01:23:08):
like we see her scream that can of realizing what happens.
And also maybe this is probably a bit before all
the airport's security changed dramatically, That's what I was thinking.
Oh tho, it changed a lot after two thousand and one,
but it started changing before that. This movie exists before

(01:23:31):
that time. Nowadays, you can't flip out in an airport
or you're going to get dechained. That may have been
true to some degree then, especially in a foreign country.
So she can't freak out. She has to solve this problem,
and we're seeing her run limited scripts. It makes no
sense for her to stay at the airport, but that,

(01:23:52):
in her brain is the fastest way she can get home,
so that's what she does. Dad makes a very very
poor error to tell her when he and all of
the family get home at the nice, happy little ending
that like, how'd you guys get here?

Speaker 3 (01:24:07):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:24:07):
Well, we just took the flight you didn't want to
wait for, So that I'm like, whoo, let's take a
class in dead husbands one oh one, my friend. But
it's quite normal for people in her position to recognize,
I'm not leaving, I'm not moving. I'm staying right here
in case something happens that whatever slot I'm hoping for,
he opens up and I can solve the biggest problem

(01:24:29):
that exists in my world. Because all the rest of
my children and everybody else around me are fine, Kevin
is not. Therefore, Kevin is my focus. Getting to America
now is my only focus. We see the amount of
stress and strain on her as she is trying to
stay together, or trying to keep her mind together, trying
to keep herself composed enough that she can negotiate with

(01:24:52):
strangers during the holidays about giving up their flights and
altering their plans and giving away valuables and money, everything
that she has just to accomplish that goal. That is
what happens when we become locked into something that requires
it of us, which this does. I don't think she

(01:25:12):
did anything that I would look back on and go ooh,
shouldn't have done that. Now, All of it was appropriate,
all of it was a logical thing for her to try.
But to run at that speed. She says she's been
up for thirty hours straight to sit in a poker
bonkers to not immediately interrupt John Candy, the one person

(01:25:34):
there gus right, who is willing to help her and
is being genuinely nice to her, but is sitting and
singing poka songs that were famous fifteen years ago in
sheboygan Bananas, Bananas dude. Her kid is home alone in Chicago. Well,

(01:25:55):
you know when I can think of suburbs, it's the suburbs.
But anyway, he is willing to get her from multiple flights,
bouncing back and forth with each of them, hoping that
they will lead her to where she needs to get
to to care for her son, while still knowing death
happens in two minutes. She could get home and find
her child dead, and she knows it. That's terrifying. She

(01:26:21):
is trying to put all of that out of her
mind to tell herself it will be okay. I just
need to get there. That is irrational problem solving. They
needed to get someone else to get there, to get
another adult who could be there immediately, but they tried
that and it didn't work. That sucks. So she's doing
the next thing that can occur to her, even if
it's not logical, it makes sense in the simple enough

(01:26:44):
that no one else will help me solve my problem.
I will solve my problem. It happens to humans all
the time. But watching her struggle to not strangle Gus
when he's singing Poka songs trying to shove his clarinet
into her face, like she has any interest whatsoever in
anything other than getting home to her son, which she

(01:27:05):
made very clear by all her actions.

Speaker 1 (01:27:08):
I think he's trying to distract her.

Speaker 2 (01:27:10):
I get it, really, because I think he's being annoying.

Speaker 1 (01:27:14):
I think he's I think both things can be true.

Speaker 2 (01:27:17):
For sure, I think both things are true. But he
was not reading her body language. Each successive thing she
was saying no firmly. She was polite the first two times.
The third time was I will shove that clarinet through
your neck if you put it in my face again,
which it shouldn't have taken. The reality of how close

(01:27:38):
to her child being gone forever she came, is going
to hit her. When she calms down, it's going to
hit her, and she's going to be ridden with guilt
and shame and anger and the failure of every other
adult and every other adult adjacent child. All of those feelings,

(01:28:02):
once the crisis is over, are going to be something
she needs to deal with. And she's already showing a
propensity to call herself a bad mother, So I suspect
guilt and shame will be first. So I think for her,
helping her cope with that is going to be priority one.
For me. I think she sticks out to me as
the person who's most likely to struggle with that and

(01:28:25):
to have to explain that because that's going to be
a story that someone hears hold of. Because these bandits
have struck the whole neighborhood, everybody's going to know their story.
Everybody's going to be in everybody's business, and everybody's going
to know the McAllister's left Kevin home alone. That's a
lot of guilt as it is, social services as sure

(01:28:47):
as fuck coming to the house.

Speaker 4 (01:28:49):
Yeah, So how would you treat that guilt? Ben?

Speaker 2 (01:28:51):
I would treat that guilt with a lot of trauma
treatment at first, to get through the shock and the
stun that she had to associate away from them. I
think using trauma afformed approaches possibly emdr of the moment
that you realize while you're mid flight that you left
your child, because she's going to have that burned into

(01:29:11):
her head. And I also think that doing some kind
of ego state ifs typework to help her reckon with
the parts that are criticizing her and give them their due,
to create space that allows them to have a voice
that gives her something to approve upon that's true, while

(01:29:32):
also tuning down the level of impact they have. And
I think I've designed an exercise to deal with this
that kind of uses pie charts to do this to
help talk people through where I take their initial impression
and have them assign however much blame they think goes
to them and how much goes to something else, and
they fill out the pie chart however they want, and

(01:29:55):
then I have them list all of the factors that
actually went into the situation one by one and then
put all of that into a pie chart to help
rebalance where the blame actually lies. And for this, there
were a lot of other eyes that also left Kevin.
It isn't just her, and something like that can help

(01:30:16):
her realize in a concrete manual where only one hundred
percent are possible, this cannot possibly be all her fault.
Where the fuck is dad in this equation where's several adults,
several adults, and I get the factor of like, Okay,
another kid that looked exactly like Kevin was acting like
Kevin fooled everybody when everybody was stressed and their perception

(01:30:38):
was down, but also everybody was stressed. The fuck out
gets to go onto that pie chart that the situation
was bananas and nobody was operating their best, because people
need to have something that helps them generate self compassion
to be imperfect in order to defeat shame and guilt.
But you also cannot dismiss all of it because because

(01:31:00):
it's not true and your body and your parts won't
let you, you have to take from it what you
need to to adapt and not repeat mistakes. So finding
that blend between the two is part of what that
exercise is for. So something like that would be what
I would use.

Speaker 1 (01:31:18):
All right, So we'll take our last break here and
be back with final thoughts.

Speaker 4 (01:31:23):
All right, who wants to go first? First? All right?

Speaker 2 (01:31:26):
Go ahead?

Speaker 3 (01:31:28):
I love Home Alone. I've always loved it. I always
watch it at Christmas time. Sometimes I even watch the
second one and yeah, and I'll definitely watch this movie more.
And I've always been on Kevin's side, so that's always
been the thing. But yeah, but I love the movie
and it was really fun to talk about.

Speaker 2 (01:31:50):
I always love Home Alone. I still am impressed by
it each time I watch it. I watch it every year,
and my wife and I sit and turn to each
other and say, like, this movie's really good.

Speaker 4 (01:32:00):
Absolutely a really tightly written script.

Speaker 2 (01:32:03):
Yes, it's tight. It's emotionally intelligent. It covers a lot
of different things that all encapsulate the holidays. It is
the stier of holiday film. And I think it's great
and I look forward to watching it again. I hope
my child can find the appreciation for it we have.

(01:32:23):
I do have to share with this that as I
was watching this on the way to my mother in
law's house today, I was commenting to my wife, was like,
you know, Joe Peshy is just really good at being
a tiny little menace. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:32:40):
I think that is his type cast for sure, and
everything he's been in ever, Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:32:45):
To which my wife turned to me and said, he's
my spirit animal.

Speaker 4 (01:32:51):
Well, they are both Italian.

Speaker 2 (01:32:55):
Truth. I just was like, your words, your words, and
now I'm terrified for my life and I'm gonna make
sure I never ever ever tell her she's funny.

Speaker 1 (01:33:09):
Well on that note, On that note, I can give
my final thoughts. I love this movie. Of course, I'm
a nineties kid. I feel like part of being a
nineties kid is you must adore this movie. It's a
staple in every health your face and say exact de moon, No,
I had a talk boy, which was part of the
second movie. I owned a talkboy as a kid because

(01:33:31):
I needed one after seeing the sequel.

Speaker 2 (01:33:33):
And now you have a podcast.

Speaker 4 (01:33:34):
Maybe that's connected. Who could say?

Speaker 2 (01:33:36):
Who could say? So?

Speaker 1 (01:33:38):
I don't think I've watched the second one in a
million years. I'm sure it's not that good, just because
it seems wacky the idea of trying to do this again.
But I love the first one. I love how smart
Kevin is. I love how empathetic he is. I think
this movie does a good job of having that heart
to it. Or even as a kid, I would get
like anxious when he wants to go to get the

(01:34:01):
new toothbrush and he's like, is this been approved by
the American Dental It like made my stomach hurt As
a kid, so I could feel it, and so I
love this movie. I'll probably watch it a ton. I'm
excited that my nieces and nephews are finally starting to
get old enough or maybe I can show this to
them soon and they would probably get a kick out
of it. It is like a timeless movie, even though
it's a lot of elements now that wouldn't happen with

(01:34:22):
modern technology. Think the essence of the movie is very timeless.
And kids love to see another kid beat up a
bunch of outwit and beat up a bunch of adults.

Speaker 2 (01:34:32):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (01:34:33):
I got to watch it with a room full of
nieces and nephews last year, and it was so much
fun because we're laughing so hard, whitting hurt.

Speaker 2 (01:34:41):
It was glorious.

Speaker 1 (01:34:43):
Yeah, and there's a lot of stuff in this movie
that I think is a root to a lot of
things I can't stand nowadays, like seeing someone step on
a nail. There's a lot of injuries in this movie
that I cannot watch still, and I'm like, is this
word formed? It's my aversion to these things. So yes,
of course I will watch it a bunch again. I
think this is a three for three, which I don't
always have very often on this show, but a three

(01:35:04):
for three on this one. So as always, if you
would like to find us on any social media, we
are no longer on x or Twitter, we are on threads,
We are on Instagram at popcorn Psychology. You can also
find us on Facebook and TikTok at popcorn Psychology. Oh well,
if you want to reach out to us, you can
email us at popcorn psychologygmail dot com. As we said earlier,

(01:35:26):
if you would like to support us in any way,
we really appreciate it, as we are a DIY podcast,
So if you'd like to be a Patreon patron, we
would love that. You can find it in our Instagram bio.
If you would like to get merch from us, you
can find us on Tea Public And if you would
like to support us for free, leaving us a rating
and review wherever you listen to us is the freest

(01:35:48):
and easiest way for us to be found by more listeners.
You know, keep the change, you filthy animals

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

Crime Junkie

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Home Alone: Family Issues, Holiday Stress, and KEVIN!!!

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

Crime Junkie

Stuff You Should Know

All Episodes

Home Alone: Family Issues, Holiday Stress, and KEVIN!!!

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist