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Transcript

Kill Me In The First Wave · Not Right Now

• 0:00
  [upbeat music] Hey, I have three kids. They eat so much. We try to eat real food. We try to cook when we can.
• 0:10
  We try not to waste too much, 'cause it drives me nuts, and it's expensive, and also for obvious climate reasons, which is why the Mill Food Recycler changed our lives a couple years ago.
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• 0:37
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• 0:44
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• 1:15
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• 1:26
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• 1:44
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• 1:54
  [upbeat music] We had to go to an allergy doctor. It took so long to get this appointment, so complicated, who you can go to, who you can't.
• 2:03
  It's changing because Mom and Dad's union went on strike last year, and so this and this, and they're like, "Am I gonna miss a pep rally at this allergy appointment?"
• 2:11
  [upbeat music] Welcome to Not Right Now, the podcast about parenting through all of this. We'll be talking about/crashing out over topics like- Lost Chromebook chargers and lost democracy...
• 2:25
  crying over spilled milk, and also, are we drinking dairy anymore? It's not an advice show. It's a you're not alone, and you're also not crazy for screaming in the shower kinda show. I'm Claire Zulkey from Evil Witches.
• 2:37
  And I'm Quinn Emmett from Important Not Important. You can find details on anything we talk about in the show notes or at our website, notrightnow.show..show.
• 2:48
  Uh, and if you like what you hear today, please share it with a parent who needs it or who might laugh and tell their kids to be quiet, and then drop us a nice little five-star review.
• 2:56
  And reminder, you can send questions or feedback to questions@notrightnow.show.
• 3:02
  [upbeat music] I'm newly sober, including no gummies or anything like that. What does newly sober mean?
• 3:18
  Well, I mean, the long story, or the, maybe the short story is that I've been a pothead basically my whole life, and on and off, and then I'd say in the last maybe five years or so, maybe fewer than that, been more serious about my attempts to moderate, and then most recently been like, moderation is not it.
• 3:37
  So- Hmm... I just was a very extremely functional pothead, so that makes- Mm-hmm...
• 3:42
  it hard to come up with reasons to quit, especially when you can work from home, when you're not doing brain surgery, you're not driving around a lot, so, and then it's legal here also.
• 3:52
  And just, yeah, getting more real about, wow, I have no inability to stop before I start getting deeply depressed- Mm-hmm...
• 3:58
  and feeling bad about myself, so there's a community on Reddit that's actually really helpful called Leaves that is about people in the same boat, and it's just very...
• 4:07
  It's, like, validating 'cause pop culture tells us that it's not addictive, and it's like a gag. We learned in D.A.R.E.
• 4:14
  that you smoke pot once, and you're on the fast track to hell and heroin and selling all your belongings. So you feel stupid for having a problem with something that many other people don't have a problem with.
• 4:25
  So the community makes you feel better, just being like, "You're not alone," and this is... There are some people for whom their brains just are like that.
• 4:32
  But yeah, I'm feeling, between being offline sort of and the news and all this, I feel, like, very, like the well is very dry currently. But also, that's been part of...
• 4:43
  I don't know about you, but that's a part of the creative process, huh, is like, you gotta feel like shit and like you have no business doing what you do. Anyway, ask me anything.
• 4:51
  No, I wanna do a whole conversation on coping because I've gone in the other direction. I drank. I'm Irish, which is the world's laziest crutch. I'm like 17th generation Irish. There's nothing to go on there.
• 5:06
  I have pivoted to gummies. I was- Mm-hmm... a, I mean, somewhere between a coward and a goody two-shoes, I guess, on that, not with drinking, clearly.
• 5:14
  I mean, it's like I could take down a bottle of whiskey and while you go to the bathroom. But gummies have been helpful for coping for me, and I don't find at least
• 5:24
  that those are addicting, which is interesting, 'cause everything else seems to be in my life.
• 5:27
  So yeah, no, we should have a whole conversation about that because I think half of Etsy is Mom Drinks Because You Cry- Mm-hmm... towels on purpose, which is- Yeah.
• 5:36
  [laughs] It's, it's a thing, 100%, and we've all been there.
• 5:39
  Well, I take heart in that I think more people are realizing that, at least with alcohol, and this is my experience, that, like, I think people often think that you have to be an alcoholic or fit a definition for alcoholism or hit rock bottom to have a reason to quit.
• 5:55
  Mm-hmm. And I think more people are likeNo, I'm gonna quit before g- Like, I, I just was...
• 6:00
  Like, moderation wasn't working, and I happened to read this book about, it was like the 100-day sober reset, and it just clicked with me that it was like stop trying to always cut down.
• 6:10
  Like, zero is simply easier than always trying to have one or two. 'Cause I was like, my favorite thing, especially during the pandemic, was to drink on an empty stomach. Mm. And that always worked out great.
• 6:19
  And especially as you get older, for me, like, I would wake up at 4:00 in the morning with spiraling anxiety and self-loathing and yelling at myself, and- Mm... so I don't miss that.
• 6:29
  See, if I don't take my gummies, it's very interesting. Mm-hmm. It's great. My wife's version of that, she read Quit Like a Woman. It's apparently an incredible book, which was pretty helpful for her.
• 6:39
  Same thing, to be like, "Instead of every other night, why don't we just not do it anymore?" Yeah, yeah. It's a journey. It's a journey, for sure. Yeah.
• 6:47
  Well, I think it helps to live in parts of the country where it's normalized to not drink. I don't know.
• 6:52
  It's just fascinating, 'cause here in Evanston, it's not hard to find a lot of good places that sell cool NA drinks and cocktails. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
• 6:59
  But then when I went to Phoenix with, uh, my husband's family last year, uh, I would go to a bar and be like, "Do you have anything?" They'd be like, "I think we have O'Doul's in the basement that's non-alcoholic."
• 7:08
  [laughs] Or, like, Diet Coke. Right. That would be it, so. Right, right. Yeah, it's interesting. My wife always tells a story of when she lived in Paris, like, 15 years ago, and she tried to order something,
• 7:18
  I think it was without ham. And they were like- Hmm... "What if we cut it really small?" Yeah, she's like- She's, "No, that's, it's still there." They're like, "[sighs] I can't-" [laughs] "...
• 7:28
  really do this for you," which is its own thing. I just got my alert to sign...
• 7:33
  The most important thing I do every single week is remember to sign my, now just my two younger children, my middle and my younger, my youngest child up for their before school program, because their bus doesn't come until 9:15 or something horrific like that.
• 7:51
  They haven't done the reverse thing. California's in the middle of changing it so the older kids go later so they get their sleep, but not here. So very quickly when we moved back, we were like, "Well, that's untenable."
• 8:03
  Like, w- we have lives to live and work to do. 'Cause as you know, you don't just jump back into work two seconds after the bus comes. I just stare at a wall and [scoffs] s- scream to myself.
• 8:11
  Well, you might be up for, like, three hours by then, like, with them. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
• 8:15
  Which it's so funny you say that, 'cause, like, today was their first full day back after break and after all the ice storm, which around here- Mm-hmm... it's like we got a quarter of an inch.
• 8:25
  And it's so funny, 'cause I have a sinus infection and, and woke up late, and so I missed my older kid going to school, and I was like, "Oh, that's such a bummer." 12 hours ago, I would've paid
• 8:37
  a million dollars for someone to take my children, easily. Just name whatever it is. And then I was like, "Oh, I'm so sad I didn't see him this morning." And it's like, what the fuck? Like, uh, anyways.
• 8:48
  I always wonder if dads are more sentimental like that. My h- my husband's always... He's just more like that. He's more, like, constantly sad.
• 8:55
  He took our son away for a weekend 'cause he's like, "He's not gonna talk to me for too long," and- Yeah... I don't know.
• 9:00
  I think, I mean, I certainly feel that way, and I was just looking at a drawing my kid did for me when he was, like, three, and I was like, "Oh." But also I'm like, "I don't have time for sentimentality.
• 9:09
  I gotta empty the dishwasher." [laughs] Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, that's part of it. And then I empty the dishwasher, or I don't. They're supposed to empty it, which goes so-so. But yeah, it's chaos.
• 9:21
  [upbeat music] Hey, it's Quinn. So as you might be aware, this whole thing started as a simple, "Hey, here's what you missed," newsletter.
• 9:32
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• 10:43
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• 10:52
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• 11:09
  We depend on it every minute of every day. So thanks for supporting our partners. [upbeat music] Anyways, we've made this whole list of things we wanna talk about. It's been a pretty brutal few days for a lot of folks.
• 11:22
  I don't know [scoffs] when this'll come out, but the fires in Los Angeles started, what is it, 72 hours ago? Something like that, where we lived for... I was there for 14 years. My wife was there for 20-something years.
• 11:34
  So a lot of friends there. She was there when it started. We got her out of there. It's been crazy.
• 11:38
  And I thought about, obviously, a lot of people and a lot of families are affected, but also, obviously, around the world constantly. Tibetan earthquakes last week, Palestine all the time.
• 11:51
  Families lose their homes, and it, it might not even be a home, just, like, their latest shelter all of the time.
• 12:00
  And-If you haven't ever been in that situation or been homeless or been, or been, or been close to it, right? You aren't faced that often with the question of like, "What would I take with me?"
• 12:15
  Besides the recommended go bag stuff, which I, I got a whole list of that stuff. That's pretty straightforward, right? And I know you said you guys played the game in the car the other day. Like, lightning question.
• 12:25
  Forget emergency supplies. Yeah. What are you taking with you? 'Cause you guys don't live in an area where it's...
• 12:29
  You're not getting a hurricane, you're pro- hopefully not getting fires, you're probably not getting earthquakes up there. You guys are getting [laughs] drought, floods, that kind of shit. We get tornadoes.
• 12:39
  We've had tornadoes. Tornadoes, sure. That, sure that counts. We've had frozen... We've had extreme cold, so we've had, like, frozen pipes at one point. But it's not, "We gotta bail right now," type of stuff usually.
• 12:47
  I mean, tornadoes can be that. Yeah. They go by quickly. No, yeah, I was playing that game. I would bring, obviously, the kids and the dog- Sure... food, my medication, kids' medication, particularly the ADHD medication.
• 13:00
  I have a pillow, like a comfort pillow. I think there's a, a lot of adults are coming out [laughs] in later life admitting that they have, like, comfort items.
• 13:08
  Oh, I took my wife's pregnancy pillow 15 years ago and never gave it back. Yeah. I brought my pillow with me when I gave birth both times. I just...
• 13:15
  I've been reading this book about World War II, which made me think about jewelry.
• 13:19
  Not like I have tons of fine jewels, but it seems like it would be prudent to bring any jewelry I have, not just partially for sentimental value, but also it'd be worthwhile. Laptop, phone, charger.
• 13:31
  The kids said they would bring their stuffies, and maybe a pack of Uno cards, honestly- Mm... if we were going really quickly. Mm. Socks, underwear. Yeah. I, I have a friend who was like...
• 13:41
  Uh, I saw it on, uh, Instagram, was like, "Take your phone and document everything in your house so that you have insurance to replace it." And it's, well, so many things here.
• 13:49
  I'm looking at things that are just really sentimental value, like an old rotary phone. I don't need that. Obviously, my grandma's antique typewriter. [laughs] Aside from all that shit, what...
• 13:59
  Like, if you had to grab one sentimental thing? Yeah, my pillow, I think. Mm-hmm. My pillow. Yeah, that would be it, and maybe my...
• 14:07
  I have this Omega watch my parents gave me when I was 21 years old, and that would be... That's a sentimental item from my past, but also I could sell that if I had to, I think. Ah. And the dog.
• 14:15
  I like it, thinking ahead. Yep, yep. Yeah. Yeah. Well, well, for when the shit goes down, you gotta sew... Every woman knows you gotta sew your jewelry into your clothing- Mm-hmm...
• 14:25
  so that not only will the bad guys not find it when they shoot you- Mm-hmm... it will hopefully protect you, and you won't die right away. So that's what... Yeah. How about you? I don't know.
• 14:34
  It's such a funny thing, 'cause I went so... When we were in LA and we lived sort of in the Fryman Canyon area, it's like Laurel Canyon hippie area, and we were up in proper Laurel Canyon forever.
• 14:45
  And by the way, that's what went up last night, part of it. Mm. And that's a real you're not getting out of there if there's not a lot of time story, 'cause it's the tiniest roads. There's no real zoning up there. Right.
• 14:57
  It's a cluster fuck. But I definitely went, like, full prepper, especially once the kids showed up, where I was like, "All right, we have our plans." I did the pictures.
• 15:04
  Like, once a year, I had my dumb alerts pop up and be like, "It's time to re-catalog all your shit." I had redundant hard drives on redundant hard drives backed up every week, one at my house, one at my office, down...
• 15:16
  I mean, it's just fucking ridiculous. My wife just, eyes glaze over whenever I talk about this shit. But I was like, "I, I just wanna be semi-prepared."
• 15:24
  But besides, we had the list on the fridge, if anyone was staying at our house, "Here's where we go, this is what we do," and all that shit.
• 15:31
  I think it's a funny thing now for me to answer that, because now we're more in the hurricane zone, which is interesting, 'cause you get, like, a few days notice with those- Mm... which is interesting. And
• 15:44
  fire damage is obviously often, at least in, in this wildfire sense, more complete. Hurricanes aren't great, though, 'cause you get water damage.
• 15:54
  That's really the thing now with climate is it's so much wetter, and so it's a shit show. But I'm... It's funny, we're living back in the house I grew up in, and so I'm, I've definitely got m-
• 16:06
  more, like, family sentimental stuff around. Mm-hmm. So that complicates the question a bit. I don't really know. Yeah. It's...
• 16:13
  Here's the thing I struggle with, is I've been trying to get rid of everything in our life- Right... for a good f- five years now, right? And I think part of that is, I think about...
• 16:23
  I think we've got three or four friends who've lost their houses so far in the past couple days, and it's so horrible, and at the same time, how many jokes have I made? Have you ever used the 1-800-GOT-JUNK service?
• 16:34
  [laughs] Something similar. I've paid for some, like, hippy-dippy recycling guy to come do it, 'cause he'll recycle the mattress. Sure. So I do it even dumber. But yeah. Yeah.
• 16:44
  No, it's great, but it's funny how many times, especially after we moved, and getting rid of everything and all this. Mm-hmm.
• 16:50
  But as the kids have gotten older too, and just broken old furniture people didn't hold on to, and the guys would be in our attic, and they're like, "All right, what are we taking?"
• 16:58
  And I had made a pile, but there's such a part of me that wanted to be like, "Here's what's gonna happen. I'm gonna leave for half an hour, and I want you to do a reverse supermarket sweep and take as much as you can.
• 17:12
  Don't tell me what it is." Yeah. "I don't care. I don't wanna know." Yeah. "And just take as much."
• 17:17
  And it's easy to make those jokes and be frustrated and wanna Marie Kondo everything, but then sometimes you do have to choose, right? Yeah.
• 17:26
  Well, it's interesting, 'cause the thought experiment is, are we gonna be evacuating to a place where you can buy things, you know, to replace? Yeah.
• 17:33
  Like, I was thinking if we were gonna be in a shelter, like someone on Witches talked about their parents were now at, uh, some conference center. Mm-hmm.
• 17:41
  I would bring sleep masks, for instance, and maybe our guitar, 'cause that would help us pass the time. I... Our guitar is not special. It's not, like, an antique.
• 17:49
  It's not a fancy guitar, but at least that would kill some time. But if the shit hits the fan, like, the guitar, I don't care. Like, we'll hit it on fire.
• 17:57
  And then the photo albums, I [laughs] it's probably, maybe doesn't seem like part of my personality, but I do make a photo album every year.
• 18:04
  It's, like, the one present for the grandparents, because they don't need anything. And so the kids love looking at that, but it lives in the cloud, so I could just eve- allegedly go back on- Right...
• 18:13
  whatever, Ti- Snap, Tiny Prints, and go and order them again. Right. So those will live on. So it's a weird thought experiment.
• 18:19
  It's funny, 'cause a friend of mine lives in New Orleans, and they evacuated toBiloxi or something like that, and uh, my friend said that they got emergency packets, and she received b- uh, Bombas socks in her packet.
• 18:31
  I was like, "Oh." Like it was... I was like, "I- the system works. I buy them-" [laughs] "... because of you, so I'm glad you-" It's actually not a thing. Right. Right. Right. [laughs] Those are sisters of my socks.
• 18:41
  [laughs] Yeah, exactly. What would your children handle best about having to bail quickly, and what would they handle most poorly, either immediately or as time went on? Uh, the...
• 18:54
  Well, the younger one, the thing would give me a lot of fear would be the ADHD medication. Mm-hmm. Although it's not... I mean, compared to, I'm sure, other kids, it just...
• 19:02
  Like when you mention travel, I just wanna hear more about traveling without the meds, 'cause for us it's, like, a non-starter. The answer is we FedExed it to a friend who came and met us three days later. Good.
• 19:12
  I was thinking if that was me, I would've ha- we've had our prescription transferred to another town when we ran out, 'cause it was like- Oh, yeah...
• 19:18
  I remember when we first started meds for him, we were debating should we go off on the weekends or not. Mm-hmm.
• 19:23
  And I felt, this is back in an earlier era when we were, like, debating the pluses and minuses of medication and the moral aspects, and should we not do it on the weekends?
• 19:31
  And a friend mentioned our son has interpersonal challenges when he's not on medication. Hmm. And I was like, "That's the same with our son, too." So I mean, they can be scared. Like, they are...
• 19:42
  They're not super anxious kids, but, like, when we have tornado drills, they get... Not tornado drills, but, like, when we've had warnings, I mean, it is scary. The, the sirens go off, and the- Mm...
• 19:52
  phone beeps, and then we go in the basement, and that's the only time that the dog comes down with us. That's the only time we watch local news, and, and they get anxious.
• 20:00
  And that's the one time I would say the go bag actually was worthwhile, was that I pulled it out and I showed them everything in it and what it does. And b- you know, I have no...
• 20:10
  It's like really I don't really wanna be a prepper. I'd rather die. Just kill me in the first wave. [laughs] Like, let's not pretend. But in that case, I'm like finally this was...
• 20:19
  Like, the value is the peace of mind and pretending that you have some control, and that's where it paid off. Mm-hmm. But I'm grateful that they are... This is so basic.
• 20:28
  They are fu- functioning children who could walk- Mm-hmm... and pack their own bags and carry things, and, uh, they have empathy, I think. So they... I would just be thankful that they have, like...
• 20:42
  I mean, I don't wanna be so, like, no sense of humor about it, but, you know, I have friends whose kids are, like, you know, Make-A-Wish kids.
• 20:49
  And so we don't have to make hard decisions per se, and so I'm thankful for that, that they... I'm thankful that they can pee standing up. Mm-hmm. I'm thankful that they... Just things like that, right?
• 20:59
  So they'd be fine. They would be all right. I was talking to a friend of mine who did... They did evacuate three kids, two dogs.
• 21:06
  They're in a hotel, and she said the older one is a little worried, and the younger two are blissfully just happy in the, like, the disgusting hotel pool. And I was like, "A little worried is awesome."
• 21:17
  I mean, like- Sure... for a kid, for a 10-year-old or a nine-year-old, that's amazing. I mean, that's appropriate, and that's normal. You should be a little worried.
• 21:24
  But on the other hand, I know kids who are so anxious about life that they can't go to school without throwing up. I don't know. That's not a very interesting answer. No, it's good.
• 21:33
  When COVID was really going down, let's say, like, late 2020, how old were your kids at that point? Preschool and second grade. So leave preschool out of it. Two, two of mine I think were still in preschool.
• 21:48
  When they were like, "Well, there's a million people dead now in the US," which was probably an understatement. I don't know if we were at a million yet at that point, but close to it.
• 21:57
  Did you tell the second grader about that kind of number? Did, did you let them know how bad it was? Yeah. I mean, but also I feel like we've learned a lot about how our mental health and control...
• 22:08
  What we can control for our mental health, how that affects the kids. Yeah. I was drinking then. My husband, he still is a drinker, but he was on the more extreme end of anxiety, like washing the groceries down.
• 22:20
  He didn't let us order in food for three months or something like that. Mm. Like, we had a lot of fights, and we were extremely stressed out, constantly checking the news.
• 22:29
  So like, our younger son, actually the preschooler, his one way of, I think, getting control, and this is pre-ADHD diagnosis, was that he would refuse to wash his hands, or it'd be, like, a big pain in the ass to wash his hands.
• 22:41
  And we would be like- The one thing. Yeah, the one thing. And so we'd be like, "People are dying. This is not-" Uh-huh. And so, so they were not too worried, but they also were definitely not getting our best selves.
• 22:55
  And I think- Yeah... God forbid there's another disaster again, but I think we would be a lot more under control about h- maintaining our, our, our own...
• 23:04
  Parenting is so much harder when you are so stressed out, and the kids always respond to it. They notice the, like, the smallest deviation. Like, I had a sinus infection this week, and they responded to me.
• 23:16
  They were like, "Well, these are the last days of Dad." And I was like, "Well, n- n- does it seem that bad? But also, are you ready to get rid of me?" Like, [laughs] "I'm not sure." But yeah, they noticed so fast. Yeah.
• 23:26
  So I guess, like, in retrospect, sorry, the kids were... They were troopers, though. They were, like... They pivoted to the e-learning.
• 23:34
  Uh, they had a teacher who was very magical, the, the second grader anyway, and she was really, like, positive about it and really fun, and so he rolled with it. So he was a good guy.
• 23:44
  I think that's kinda older kid energy as well. But kids are pretty astoundingly resilient, I think, when the shit hits the fan. Mm-hmm. But I don't wanna find out for sure. Yeah, I mean, I was...
• 23:55
  We were comparing the e- evacuations to COVID just yesterday, 'cause I was like, at least during COVID we were at home, right? Mm. And we still had some kind of- Mm...
• 24:04
  semblance of school, so there was some idea- Right... of routine.
• 24:08
  And I just think about my friends who have kids, and there is no school, and there's no e-learning, 'cause the teachers are evacuated too, and, like, where- Right... is the school district? I don't know.
• 24:18
  I mean, I, I know this is, like, such a low priority, like, when people have lost everything. But I'm like, "What are you doing all day?" Like, literally. That's why I was like- Yeah...
• 24:26
  my kids were mentioning taking books, and on the one hand, books are dead weight. On the other hand-The f- what the fuck else are they gonna do? Yeah.
• 24:33
  Yeah, he'll reread the same Far Side book over and over again, so- 'Cause it's perfect. Yeah. [laughs] Far Side ages in an interesting way sometimes. Uh-huh.
• 24:42
  But anyway, so yeah, I mean, if you can carry, carry your own books, let's bring the books for sure. That's why I mentioned Uno, something like that. No, 100%. It, it is, you're right. It's different.
• 24:51
  COVID was so weird and so hard to explain to kids because you can't see it, right? Right. And you didn't wanna show them pictures of- It-... Central Park becoming a morgue. But they can see this. They can go outside.
• 25:03
  I remember when we'd have fires in LA and they were little, and you could just see the smoke, and I'd be like, "This isn't great. We can't breathe this," et cetera, et cetera.
• 25:10
  But it's a different thing when it's, when you gotta leave, and then you gotta deal with, "Can we go back?" Have you guys moved? Have you ever moved with the kids? Only, we moved when I was pregnant with our second one.
• 25:22
  We moved from a townhouse in Chicago to this house here, and it wasn't... I, I mean, it was unpleasant for me, just because I was having a harder pregnancy at the time. Mm.
• 25:32
  But we were moving back to my hometown, and we moved to a house that was like... I always think when we sell this house, we'll tell people like, "We got through this pandemic 'cause of this house."
• 25:41
  Anyway, so nothing traumatic. Nothing- Mm-hmm. Our kid doesn't even remember our old house. So what was it like with you guys when you moved from, from California? It was interesting because we came to Virginia in
• 25:54
  like late June 2020 just to get some more space for them and, and we wanted to be near my mom and make sure we're helping with her and all that.
• 26:01
  We were very lucky and, but then we just stayed here for a year and did remote school here and all this, and we, we had always kinda talked outside very loosely about if we would ever make the move, but it was always like later than this.
• 26:13
  And it's a funny thing, 'cause again, growing up here and now, it's, it's a pretty heavily military area. Checking every box of the armed forces. And it's great. There's some really wonderful people.
• 26:24
  But what's really interesting, I remembered, and I guess I'd kinda forgotten about, is a third of each of my cl- kids' classes leaves every year in a new class. And, and new parts come in.
• 26:35
  'Cause every two, two and a half years, these kids move. And it's really interesting because for most of these kids, they're just born into it. All they know is they move every two years, right?
• 26:44
  It's not that big of a surprise. And clearly there's pros and cons to that, but that's the life. That's the deal.
• 26:51
  But it's one thing to explain to kids as they grow up that they have to move for that, and that's, "Hey, this is our life and here's the deal, and it's gonna be these places, and maybe get to go to Germany or some shit if you're in the Army or whatever, or Air Force."
• 27:03
  It's another thing to move 'cause Mom and Dad's work or whatever it is, or to be close to family, which is kind of what we did. We were just eventually, well, kind of ties into this.
• 27:12
  We moved to be closer to family, but also, so our house in Fryman Canyon, this was 2020, 2021, had never had a fire, right? We paid our bills, et cetera, et cetera. But in a, relatively for Los Angeles, like wooded area.
• 27:29
  I think our property insurance was like 1,500, $2,000 a year. The house was 2,100 square feet, one story.
• 27:39
  And after the 2018, 2019 fires, where everything kind of looked like Mordor, which was about four or five miles from us, I remember getting a letter in the mail, in the actual mail, that said, "Hey, your home insurance policy's canceled for fire exposure."
• 27:58
  [laughs] And I was like, "Okay, that's super-" Yeah... fucking annoying. And I called this, our, our insurance broker who's, she's great, and she was like, "I know, I've gotten 50 of these calls today."
• 28:07
  She said, "Hold on," 'cause basically all the insurance companies ended up... This is really before I got into this kind of work. The insurance companies are all freaking out.
• 28:17
  The governor's gonna put a moratorium down and say they can't cancel for fire insurance. We have to figure this out. 'Cause clearly, I mean, five years later, this is kind of the future.
• 28:25
  We have to figure out how to deal with this. Yeah. So he did, and a week later I get a letter in the mail and it says, "Actually, we're canceling 'cause of earthquake exposure." And you're like- Oh... fuck you guys.
• 28:35
  Okay. [laughs] Yeah. Like- It's not funny but [laughs] No, it was. I was like, fair game, but fuck you. Yeah. So all right, great. Gotta go find a new policy. And it was twice as expensive as the last one. Mm.
• 28:47
  So okay, fine. One year later, letter in the mail. "Hey," whatever the fucking current company was, "Good news, we're not canceling your policy. We're pulling out of California entirely." Oh, okay.
• 28:59
  "So you gotta find a new one." I'm like, oh. Call the insurance broker. And keep in mind, like at that point, for really the first time in 10 years, we had pretty reliable income.
• 29:08
  Again, paid our bills, no, no problems, this and this. We got turned down by the next nine insurers, like kind of in order of quality. And so finally got a new policy. 'Cause you have to have one. You can't- Yeah...
• 29:22
  be on the hook for that much money unless you're obscenely wealthy, which is a whole different thing about what's going on right now. Sure. You just, you can't be. That's the whole part of getting a mortgage, right?
• 29:31
  And so basically the end game was, and this is your answer to part of the reason [laughs] we moved- Mm-hmm...
• 29:37
  besides, hey, let's go be near grandma's, was our policy over the course of that journey went from about $1,500 to $30,000. But that was like best case scenario.
• 29:48
  So th- like this week, a lot of the places that burned, especially in, they call it the Palisades fires.
• 29:53
  Th- the biggest, well, E- Eaton Fire's pretty big right now, but the Palisades Fire's so huge and they called it that 'cause it started in this neighborhood in the Palisades, which was a little village for a long time.
• 30:01
  It is now extremely, well, till four days ago, it was an extremely wealthy sort of conclave with kind of like Laurel Canyon, like little huts scattered- Mm...
• 30:10
  throughout with people who never left, and hippies that have been there for f- 80 years.
• 30:13
  But it's so dry, and it's so cut off that there was this, a big part, literally just months ago, where State Farm and other companies have started being like, "We're out. We can't do it." And this is despite- Yeah...
• 30:24
  and I was informally sort of part of this long project between state legislators, insurance companies going, okay, and this is what they're dealing with in Florida and other places as well for hurricane stuff going, insurance companies-Have to be able to stay in business, so they do have to charge you an appropriate rate for your exposure.
• 30:45
  Fine. But number two is they didn't let them, at least in California for fire. Forget the fact that with all the rain, 95% of California mortgages don't have flood insurance, 95%.
• 30:57
  You're not allowed to use catastrophic modeling. Basically, you could only model insurance rates based on the past, not on the future. Mm. Which is unfortunate 'cause that's where we're going.
• 31:05
  But they said, "If you guys are allowed to use these rates, you're not gonna... Either it's gonna be completely unaffordable, or you're gonna pull out everywhere."
• 31:13
  And the reinsurance markets [scoffs] who back the insurance companies were like, "Listen, guys, this is getting hazy to back these companies. Like, we gotta figure this out.
• 31:21
  They have to be able to pull out of some places." And so what's called the California Fair Plan got involved, which is insurer of last resort, and Florida has about 400 different versions of these. It's a clusterfuck.
• 31:31
  And it's basically been this conversation, battle, agreement, desperate thing in these places that are very exposed to say, "We really need you to stay, but we understand for you to stay, you have to be able to charge certain things, and you just can't be exposed to certain things."
• 31:49
  And so a lot of these places just don't offer it. And there's some really wealthy folks who've said, "Maybe I'll just try going without it, and we'll be-" Mm-hmm. "... the statistic where we escape."
• 31:59
  And a lot of times it works out 'cause th- these things are relatively anomalies and until they're not, right? Mm-hmm.
• 32:06
  And that's this normalization of it a little bit, not in a, the way we normalize bad shit, like we normalized COVID deaths. This normalization of...
• 32:15
  Someone had a ridiculous but pertinent quote I saw online, I have no idea who to attribute to, which is like, "Climate change is gonna be this thing that's viewed through other people's phones until you're the one who's videotaping it," right?
• 32:26
  Mm-hmm. And that was very lightly our version with the insurance thing, but that's how it is just in general with affordability of homes, period, in the US, whether you own or rent, right?
• 32:41
  2024 was the biggest jump in homelessness for families and kids in 25 years or something like that for a bucket load of reasons, from inflation to affordability to, uh, all, all these, the fact that we don't build new housing, all this.
• 32:54
  And I just have been thinking about that so much over the past 24 hours because it's one thing to have to say, "We gotta move 'cause mom and dad have to work. We wanna be near family. We don't like this weather anymore."
• 33:06
  It's another thing to say, "Our, our house burned down. You can see we can't go back there." Yeah. "Hopefully we can stay in the same city, but maybe not. We gotta go stay with family for a while."
• 33:15
  That's an easier discussion 'cause your children can see they can't go back. It's also much harder 'cause their house is gone. Mm-hmm. Good luck dealing with that. But on the other hand, in this sort of,
• 33:25
  we're gonna have to start to have some hard discussions about places we can live and places we can't anymore. Yeah. What we call adaptation in the climate sense. It's really hard to describe to kids,
• 33:38
  "Well, we can't live here anymore," or maybe your family's lived for a long time because the sea is coming or because homes are uninsurable until something- There's no water. Right.
• 33:46
  There's no water- Phoenix is the new-... until something... Right. Yeah, 100%. Fastest growing part of the US for the past 20 years. Mm-hmm. And it's really... Yeah, I don't know. It's really hard.
• 33:55
  It's really hard to describe and, but it is something we're all gonna have to get better at, and talking to kids about anything without them tuning out is really hard. Anyways.
• 34:04
  No, I think, I mean, just you talking about checking out nine different insurance companies.
• 34:08
  Just yesterday I was at the eye doctor, and they were throwing out all these different plans for me, and I was like, "I wish..."
• 34:14
  I miss being a kid when I could just go stare at all the different frames and have some other grown-up figure out this part- Oh, yeah... 'cause I'm like, "I don't..." I really wanna be like, "I don't know. Come on.
• 34:25
  Like, why are you..." And the idea of, first of all, speaking English well enough, having the time, having the attention span, and understanding to compare to seek out these insurance companies.
• 34:37
  Like, I, I wrote an article about finding pet insurance a couple years ago, and it was like the SATs for me 'cause I was like, you start talking about insurance, and I'm out instantly.
• 34:48
  And I'm like, "I shouldn't be allowed to be a, an, a parent. Like, that should... They should make you take a test to make sure you understand these kinds of things." Right.
• 34:56
  So to have to explain that to your kid, let, just navigate it, period, is a privilege. Yeah. I mean, a third of the people that...
• 35:04
  So Medicaid has expanded over the past 20 years because of Obamacare, and it's been on the states to take this free money from the federal government, and I think there's nine or 10 states that still haven't 'cause they're like, "Fuck the liberals," which is insane.
• 35:17
  And so of course the quality of life and life expectancy is way down in those places.
• 35:22
  But there were these COVID benefits that made expanded Medicaid to cover many more people, and they've started to expire, and there were people who still qualified who didn't before who could have remained on it, and a third of them, something like six or seven million people,
• 35:37
  tr- lost it simply because of paperwork. They didn't understand it, or they didn't get it in on time, or they didn't check the box correctly.
• 35:44
  And like you're saying, as my wife says all the time, like, she went to Stanford. She's got two degrees. She's like, "If I don't understand this, if I can't fucking do this, then we have a problem." Yeah. Right? Yeah.
• 35:55
  Yeah. You better... I mean, just us, we pay for our own insurance 'cause we work for ourselves, and we... My dad, he's the emeritus general counsel for a, a big law firm, and- Mm-hmm... like, that is
• 36:05
  a lot of what supports us, is just that basis. Just trying to find a new GP, 'cause mine was retired, was just the tiniest bit of entering that morass and confusion of it, and I was joking.
• 36:18
  I was like, "Well, I see why people murder now over this." Mm-hmm. Like- Fully... that is the frustration. And it makes me... You always... I don't know.
• 36:25
  I always laugh, like, thinking about people who are L- libertarians who are, like, the, the cut types who think they know better, and it's like- Mm-hmm... "Well, how do you like your firefighters?"
• 36:33
  I think we all sawThe motherfucker who posted, yeah, go fuck yourself Anyone know a private fire pro-- Yeah, I've got a bunch of water here I've been saving. Like, how much do you want for it? [laughs] Right.
• 36:42
  And yeah, there's a man... I have a friend, a woman I used to be friends with, I would say, and her husband works in reinsurance. And I don't know, I still don't know what he does.
• 36:51
  He's, like, in the mortgage market, and I know that they bought a mansion, and they live somewhere else while they completely gutted this mansion and renovated it.
• 36:58
  And I'm like, "I need to kn- I really wanna know where this money is coming from. I don't think it's good." Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I don't think anyone makes good money, like money that...
• 37:06
  But I'm too stupid to understand, so that's probably why he makes the money and, and I can't Well, they bank on that... figure it out." Yeah, fully. No, it's so true.
• 37:15
  Again, I think I made this point last time about my kid having to pick up dog poop and being like, "Adults never do chores." And you're like- [laughs]... "It- that's it.
• 37:24
  It's just chores," and it just, the more you pull the string of how complex it is, the more
• 37:29
  you discover how complex it is and how it's armed against you, again, even when you're white and you have some means and you got healthy kids. It's crazy.
• 37:36
  And then, and again, you, like, I'm, like, jealous of them when they say this, and I'm infuriated at them when they say this, but I'm also so thankful that they live in this bubble when I'm, [laughs] you know? Yeah.
• 37:50
  Like, we had to go to an allergy doctor. It took so long to get this appointment, so complicated who you can go to, who you can't. It's changing because Mom and Dad's union went on strike last year, and so this and this.
• 38:02
  And they're like, "Am I gonna miss a pep rally at this allergy appointment?" [laughs] And you're like, "That's it. That's as far as it goes for them. Holy fuck." [laughs] And you're like- Yeah...
• 38:11
  "Hold onto that as long as you can, but also, yeah, we're going to this fucking appointment." [laughs] Like- Yeah... you kidding me? No, I, yeah, my parents would be...
• 38:18
  I remember as a kid, like, out of n- left field, like, they'd kind of swoop in and be like, "You're so spoiled," when I'd be like- Yeah... "I didn't even know what I was doing."
• 38:25
  But, you know, my, I have a file folder over here about my parents, like, the, our immigration process from Poland a couple generations back.
• 38:33
  And my dad was a, this attorney, but he also, his, he was second gener- his dad's last name was Lokowski. They changed it. My dad worked as a garbage man and dug ditches.
• 38:42
  And then so my son is noting that all of his friends go skiing when he doesn't. And I'm like, "Did," I wanna be like, "Did you..."
• 38:49
  I just read this article about Lake Tahoe, about how it's, like, they need to just, like, stop letting people come, basically- Mm-hmm... for several years. And I don't know. And then in the meantime...
• 38:57
  And, and I even appreciate this. I'm still realizing my privilege as I get older, and it's, I'm being less demonstrative about it 'cause it's not 2021 anymore and nobody needs to hear it.
• 39:04
  But I heard, like, the ultimate, like, being rich is not needing to check your bank account before you go to the grocery store. Mm-hmm. And I am like, "We're rich," like period, full stop.
• 39:14
  So, and our kids don't know that 'cause they don't need to know that, but at the same time, I'm like, "Stop fucking complaining that you don't go skiing, or you don't have a phone, you don't have an electric scooter.
• 39:21
  Like, you have a house, you have a ba..." Like, when we talk about our storms and the f- cold and things like that, I'm like, "Remember the people in the tents next to Lake Shore Drive?
• 39:30
  Aren't you glad that we have a basement, that we have a roof, that we have this house that's been here for 100 years? We've been here where trees fell on our house, and it was still standing, so take comfort in it.
• 39:40
  I'm not trying to make you feel bad, but try to feel safe about it." Right. It's such a fine line, and it's really hard when you're, like, 10% tired to not be- [laughs]... demonstrative about it. It's funny 'cause
• 39:53
  per our discussion at the beginning about drinking and all that stuff, I stopped... What year is it? 20- it's fucking 2025. I know. I know. This, this is a hard year to adjust to. I'm trying to do the math.
• 40:04
  I don't know, let's say two-plus years ago, mostly because getting old, I rem- [laughs] I remember waking up one morning and being like, "God, little hungover," and realizing I hadn't actually drank the night before.
• 40:15
  And I was like, "Oh, no, this is just how I feel." I was like, "Well, fuck this. I can't..." We had three kids under three.
• 40:20
  Like, at one point, my wife left to go make her TV show for six months in Vancouver, coming back for 12 hours every weekend, and it was amazing.
• 40:27
  We were so proud of her, but I had the three, four, five-year-old at home, and I was like, "I can't also do this with one arm behind my back," which is a cocktail every night, even with just one. Yeah.
• 40:36
  It was a nightmare. And meanwhile, of course, I was still relatively young enough that part of me was like, "Oh, when you were in college, you'd have 12 of these just to be able to leave the house at night." Mm-hmm.
• 40:46
  Also not great. But I'm glad... I just eventually, again, just stopped, not out of any particular thing more than just I was like, "I need to have my fullest faculties in the morning here," and period.
• 40:58
  And also, there was enough i- in my family life, drinking and, and arguing, that I'm not gonna bring that to my kids. I'm a dick enough as it is. [laughs] Yeah.
• 41:07
  Because I got into this work, and it's v- very easy to bring it home and be on demonstrative high horse all the time.
• 41:17
  The homelessness report they presented to Congress two weeks ago or something like that, it's, like, the biggest increase in forever. And then my kids, who are great, again, caveat, evil witches don't have to say it. Mm.
• 41:27
  But they'll be like, "Which peanut butter is in this sandwich again?" And I'm like- Yeah... "Listen, motherfucker." [laughs] Like, I...
• 41:33
  [laughs] It's that kind of shit that sets me off, where I do go on the tirades, and they're like, "Oh my God, he's doing the thing again." Yeah.
• 41:41
  Well, that's when you start thinking about h- hoping for grandkids so that you're like, "I hope, I look forward to you finally getting this so that you can start going off on your own kids, and then I get to just be the fun parent that I always wanted to be and only show up and be, give you all my energy and all my love and then disappear- And then fucking bail...
• 41:59
  for all-" Right. Yeah. No, it seems easy. For all the hard stuff. A- yeah, and you don't wanna, like, skip past it all, and they're great the next minute.
• 42:04
  But again, it is those things where I'm just like, "If you had any idea what I dealt with today, you wouldn't be asking which particular peanut butter." Yeah. You know? Ugh. No.
• 42:13
  I, I think about that a lot 'cause I'm like, I've been feeling, I, I feel guilty, uh, even though I try not to, just about how, I don't know, not fun or not pleasant or just, I don't know, just very there I've been.
• 42:23
  And I try to remember that is actually the best gift you can give your kid, is just being consistently there and showing up and doing the grind. And they won't appreciate it probably now. Mm-hmm.
• 42:33
  Every once in a while- Mm-hmm... they will be like, "Thank you for making dinner," or whatever the hell. Very rarely, but sometimes.
• 42:41
  And yeah, it's a, it is, again, I feel like you always hear older people saying this, and then all of a sudden it's you, where you're like, "How, how can I be so tired [laughs]
• 42:50
  and boring and yet also still remember so deeply, like-These little indignant moments and heartbreak moments from high school and college and- Yeah... and that is so far gone, but also that was a part of me.
• 43:02
  And I wish I had a phrase that was like, end with poignant wrap-up comment here. I'm always searching for it. I don't have it, but this is where I would put it. Well, it doesn't exist.
• 43:11
  It's funny, I, again, I had to have a bit of a reckoning with myself and, and [laughs] my wife had it with me.
• 43:17
  I remember, again, getting into this work, never having really been too faced with any of those kinds of challenges health-wise, homelessness, this or that, climate-wise, whatever it might've been.
• 43:27
  But when you really start to get into it, you realize how tough it can be.
• 43:30
  And I remember at one point she came home and I was, like, hiding under a blanket, and she's like, "Listen, if you're gonna do this shit, you gotta figure out how to pull it together.
• 43:37
  Also, you can't just be asshole dad." Right. And so I wrote down these, my little productivity system, which is a little insane, which is fine. I have- I wanna hear about it later. Oh, yeah. It's, I just- Hmm...
• 43:48
  moved to a new software for the first time in 10 years, and I'm excited and terrified. [laughs] But I wrote these little rules down for myself, and they're not, of course, the only ones.
• 43:57
  But I try to read them in the morning so that I'm not shitty dad for the 45 minutes or two and a half hours before their bus comes, when I'm immediately thinking about what I gotta do, or at night.
• 44:10
  And the ones I have written down are, of course, you'll appreciate. It says, "Three guiding rules," and then there's four of them. It says, "Whenever possible, connect
• 44:19
  with others," and m- my kids and partner, "With enthusiasm, strive to create fun and delight for them." [laughs] Three, this is the [laughs] ridiculous, "Lean into each moment and encounter expecting magic."
• 44:35
  And four, "Show up." And four is the one we talk about all the time. And I'll read these and then immediately yell at them about their breakfast because...
• 44:42
  But I'm like, if I didn't read them, would I have yelled at them more? I don't know. Hmm. But I made these for a reason and made it a repeating thing.
• 44:48
  [laughs] Each morning, it's the first thing that shows up, and I'm still just like, God damn, I barely got through it. And again, like, we're not gonna lose our house anytime soon. Yeah.
• 44:57
  That's just to get through the day, and so I don't know, man.
• 45:01
  It's funny 'cause my husband's always mad that, uh, the kids are grouchy and they're taciturn at the end of the day when he picks them up and he sees the little preschoolers running out who are like, "Mommy."
• 45:11
  And, and I'm...
• 45:12
  I don't know, I guess I just accept it 'cause I sort of feel the same way of like we're all in transition, we're all kind of grouchy, we're all sort of thinking about how there's just kind of a grinding, boring night ahead.
• 45:22
  And I remember, we have a list somewhere of, like, ways to get your kid to talk about the, this end of the school day, and I'm like, let's just all be t- whatever and stop expecting the best of us during our least best time when- Yeah...
• 45:34
  sometimes I'm like, am I defeatist? Have, have I just quit, or am I just realistic? So do, do you jazz them up and get juiced up and get them talking at the end of the day or are you- No, I mean, it's a really...
• 45:45
  W- what you're basically talking about is, like, expectation setting, which we've really tried to reconcile with over the past few years for a variety of important and timely reasons, is communication and expectation setting for each of us and all of us as a large machine and with the grandmas who, again, our cheat code is we've both grandmas down the street.
• 46:06
  It's ridiculous. Mm. But there just has t- those things have to go part and parcel. But again, and I'm betting 50% on it at best, but that, am I being defeatist or am I just recognizing, like,
• 46:21
  these guys probably gave their best earlier today. Like, I'm not gonna get it, you know? There's some self-awareness there, right? Because you're asking them
• 46:32
  to, like, revisit when they got off the bus and they're like, "I'm done," you know? Yeah. Yeah. Or, "The, I j- I just wanna go home and read my book," or whatever it is.
• 46:39
  And it's a funny thing c- because I can say that now, but then they're gonna come home in, uh, whatever, three hours. "How was school?" "Fine." And I'm gonna be like, "Motherfucker, you gotta give me- Mm-hmm...
• 46:49
  more than fine." Yeah. And it, literally what we're saying, [laughs] which is they're like- Yeah... "Who, who needs to know that?" [laughs] Like, "Fine. All right, let me tell you about fucking art class."
• 46:56
  But think about your own day. What are you gonna tell them? Well, I recorded a podcast, and I did some laundry, and I did the same workout I always did. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 47:05
  And I thought about how I should probably quit my newsletter 'cause I have nothing good to say. Mm-hmm. And I blow-dried my hair for the first time in 2025. Like, they don't care, and that's not interesting. Yeah.
• 47:15
  Right, and they're also like, "That's so sad." And you're like, "Yeah, no, I'm aware of that." [laughs] Yeah, exactly. And that's every day. [laughs] That's a good day. [laughs] Like, that's a good- Yeah, I know...
• 47:24
  that's a win. So I, yeah, I don't know. We, yes, I don't wanna say I, like, try to jazz them up. I'm the dickhead who start, [laughs] I start, like- Hmm...
• 47:32
  dimming the lights in our house at 5:30 at night because I'm like, "Everyone's gotta get ready for bed." And they're like, "What? We have swim practice that doesn't start for two hours. What are you doing?"
• 47:41
  I'm like, "Well, I'm ready." Yeah. So, no, I want a little bit, but I do try to... Yeah, you're right. Like, I try to recognize it.
• 47:47
  I mean, again, like, I take a gummy before I come home so that it hits halfway through dinner so that I'm not a dick for the whole dinner. Again, there's both self-awareness, which I guess I need to extend to them more.
• 47:59
  But again, there's also, like, the middle schooler who he'll say, "How was school?" "Fine." "What'd you do?" "I don't know. Not much." And then he is pretty [laughs]
• 48:09
  open and articulate when you're like, "You just seem like you got something on your mind." He's like, "Everything. It's mid school." Mm. "Everything is on my mind," and an existential- Mm-hmm... crisis all the time.
• 48:19
  And I will say, I don't yearn for that. I do remember that, and I- Yeah... did not deal with it well at all. Yeah. No, it's a shitty time.
• 48:29
  And, and that's why I'm like you, and I guess I know that you can't dig them out of it. And also, maybe that's another topic or same topic, but, like, my kid is, again, he's a little bit online, but not more as...
• 48:42
  I, I'm like, it could be a lot worse. I feel like- Sure... he's probably not getting as much FOMO, as much bullying, as much... I mean, they do get sometimes from us.
• 48:49
  I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna, I started writing in my head a piece about what are you frantically warning your kids about now?
• 48:55
  And so, uh, we were telling the boys about-This like r-- oh, we're talking about the Cybertruck blowing up because- Sure... Cybertrucks are, we always point them out on the road.
• 49:03
  Cybertrucks are like the new punch buggies. P.S. I don't allow punch buggy in the car because I'm so sick of them arguing over who saw it first. [laughs] And so it's not allowed.
• 49:12
  It's so fun until it's definitely not, and you're like, "No, this game's terrible." Yeah. Sometimes I'll hear one of them say, "Yeah, uh-" Yeah. "Never mind. Mom's here," and I know what they're go- [laughs]...
• 49:21
  they're talking about, and I'm like, "Thank you." But anyway, so we're talking about the Cybertruck guy and how he had this manifesto, I don't know if you saw anything about it, about return to masculinity. Mm.
• 49:31
  And so I started saying... I was, like, warning them about control of women and control of women's bodies. Mm-hmm.
• 49:38
  And then I started talking about Andrew Tate, and then my husband's like, "And your f- friends who started Prime, and they're the same." And I'm like, "I don't know if they're exactly the same."
• 49:48
  And then my, the seventh grader's, like, rolling his eyes, and he's like, "Why are you going off about this again?" And I'm like, "I don't know." Like, we just start to unspool, basically, into- Mm-hmm...
• 49:57
  and then I'm like, "And don't send pictures of your penis to anyone." Right. And he's like, "Why would I ever do that?" Like- What are we starting? [laughs] We just want to play punch buggy. What the fuck, bro?
• 50:05
  We're playing a board game right now, and I'm warning them about this kind of shit. Holy shit. No, but i- it's both like you...
• 50:13
  It's cliche, these stages that are, like, expected and needed, where you're supposed to explain these things to them as they're exposed to them. Like, oh, wait, a- a- like, you were talking about the dare.
• 50:21
  Y- you know, like, that got under our skin, and Roblox seems fine until it's a fucking nightmare, and the kids are just like, "I'm just trying to play a block game," and you're like, "It's not. They're gonna take you."
• 50:32
  [laughs] And they're like, "Fuck," and you're like, "Look, here's the one statistic," and you wanna do that, but you're also like, "When else are you gonna do it except at night when you have five minutes with them, and they're trying to unwind, and you're trying to unwind" [laughs] Yeah.
• 50:44
  And you're like, "Here, let me ruin it for you."
• 50:46
  It's like our, our son was, like, making a video with his friend about they were making fun of streamers, and they're like, "Yo, click here for su- like, doing it for the subs."
• 50:54
  And they're just having a good time, but then my husband and I immediately fast-forward to kids getting red-pilled.
• 50:59
  'Cause, like, you click on some ad about weightlifting or whatever, and then before you know it, you're, you know, uh- Andrew Tate. Yeah, you are Andrew Tate. You are sex trafficking.
• 51:08
  And so yeah, and my sons for some reason don't enjoy that. They don't appreciate the wisdom. I mean, remind me to tell you my N-word story for another day, but- Oh, boy. That's a- Um... whopper. Yeah.
• 51:18
  Just in terms of the, when you think you've told your kid explicitly what not to do, 'cause as the- Mm...
• 51:24
  like, a woke parent, you're like, "This is the kind of kid I'm gonna raise," and then they're like, "Oh, you want me to do exactly the thing that you told me not to do?"
• 51:33
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• 51:51
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• 51:56
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• 52:03
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• 52:11
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• 52:22
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