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Hygiene for Boys · A Time to Sharpen

0:09
Is there anything worse than a dull blade?
0:12
Yeah, well, lots of things, I guess.
0:15
Poverty. More awkward silences, Pregnant
0:26
pauses. Seriously, though, a dough blade
0:31
is bad. It's unusable.
0:35
Keep going. Keep going, right?
0:36
Stop that, silly. In fact, it's downright
0:40
dangerous. I noticed a tendency for this
0:42
program to get rather silly. Now I do my best to keep things
0:45
moving along, but I'm not having things getting silly.
0:48
Knives need sharpening. From What Stone Boys Ranch in
0:52
Mountain View, MO, comes a Time to Sharpen, a bi weekly podcast
0:57
that examines how we can all be better versions of ourselves.
1:02
Better counselors, better teachers, better parents, better
1:06
people. Self-care doesn't announce
1:13
itself at Whetstone with spa music and soft lighting.
1:16
It shows up in the mundane, brushing teeth, washing clothes,
1:21
tending to a cut, making a bed that will be messed up again by
1:24
nightfall. And yet, this is where a lot of
1:27
the real therapeutic work lives. When a boy learns to care for
1:31
his body, he's often learning, sometimes for the first time,
1:34
how to care for himself at all. In therapy, we talk about
1:38
patterns that repeat themselves across systems.
1:41
Messy rooms, messy days, messy relationships.
1:44
The same choreography, different stage.
1:47
So we slow it down. We name it, we reshape it.
1:51
Join us this week on A Time to Sharpen as we talk about
1:54
self-care and why the smallest habits often do the heaviest
1:58
lifting. Welcome back to A Time to
2:08
Sharpen. This is Axel Limata.
2:10
I'm here with Brandon Maxwell. And I am Brandon Maxwell.
2:14
Hello, Brandon Maxwell, What's up?
2:16
How are you doing on this fine Wednesday afternoon?
2:19
Doing well, enjoying the day. Nice sunny day, got a little
2:24
reprieve from the cold so I'm enjoying that.
2:26
Unseasonably warm. Enjoying my wood stove though,
2:32
just nice. I like the cold days where you
2:36
wake up in a little bit of glow. The embers, you know, you still
2:40
got some hot coals in there and you can just throw some logs you
2:43
got it to. Where your kids are doing all of
2:45
that stuff for you, like dropping the wood and and the
2:48
kindling and building the fire and all that tending it.
2:51
Will. You like to do that?
2:52
Yourself can the older girls can throw logs on the fire.
2:57
Will, you know, chops wood and then I'll have yeah, when I need
3:02
to stock the wood inside, then I'll have a little assembly line
3:09
going with the small kids and. Is there a master of the fire?
3:13
You know, like. Is, is there something, I mean,
3:15
it's probably me at this point, but as far as who tends it the
3:19
most and making sure you know the it's the right size and the
3:27
door gets shut properly, the door is a little.
3:30
Tricky doesn't get smoky. You got to keep it, keep it fed.
3:33
And yeah, there's, there's a right amount of like messing
3:36
with it, right? And you can mess with it too
3:38
much if you don't mess with it enough.
3:40
It doesn't, yeah. And it actually makes, you know,
3:44
when you have wood that's not fully dry, it's got enough
3:49
moisture in there, then it takes, it makes it, it takes a
3:53
really hot fire to get that stuff to fire off more so.
3:57
So there's some nuances with the moisture content of wood.
4:01
For sure. And every chimney is a little
4:02
different, yeah, how the air moves through it.
4:06
And yeah, what it likes, what it doesn't like.
4:09
Have you been burning a lot? Yeah, this year, been enjoying
4:13
it, had it cleaned this year. Yeah, well, that's Yep, really.
4:17
They said stop using newspaper to start the fire.
4:20
I was like. Too much crease out.
4:22
Yeah, so we bought these little little sticks at Walmart.
4:24
Oh yeah, you got the little fat wood.
4:27
Yeah, it's actually not too bad. It's not very expensive and I
4:30
can get it started with one. Yeah, it's.
4:32
Really. It's just like, really.
4:33
Easier than trying to collect a bunch of newspaper, and if it's
4:36
better for the chimney and right reduce the likelihood to have a
4:39
fire, then it's all good. That's actually pretty good
4:43
segue to what we're talking. About it is I was.
4:46
Thinking the same. Thing we're on the same
4:47
wavelength. Yeah, man, you didn't.
4:48
You want to make a segue this time.
4:50
Sure, I mean. If you're thinking what I'm
4:53
thinking. We're thinking what I'm
4:54
thinking. We decided that we have not
4:58
talked about this and we're going to talk about hygiene and
5:04
self-care. Yeah, those types of things and
5:07
dirt, you know, from from. Money last week to hygiene this
5:10
week. Oh.
5:11
Man, these are scintillating. Topics.
5:15
Just knocking your socks off with some just sexy topics here.
5:19
But it's important. Yeah.
5:21
And we thought about because we were talking the little the
5:24
peanuts, you know, now that it's the holidays, you see Charlie
5:28
Brown Christmas. And what is the guy?
5:30
Is it Linus or? No, It's a pig pen.
5:32
Pig pen. Who's got the the dirt cloud
5:35
hanging around him all the time. And what?
5:38
Does Linus say? He says, just think the very
5:41
dust that that we're walking on could have been walked upon by
5:45
Jesus of Nazareth. Big pen is like kind of makes
5:49
you look at me a little differently.
5:50
Doesn't it? That's funny.
5:53
Well, it it's interesting too, 'cause I'm actually almost
5:58
through a book called The Worst Hard Time about the Dust Bowl.
6:03
Yeah, and I'm sure you've read some accounts of that, but, and
6:09
I've heard about it growing up, you know, and just how crazy it
6:13
was. But to just listen or to read
6:15
through some of the accounts of actual families and man, it's
6:20
just unbelievable how, I mean, the amount of tonnage of soil
6:26
that was moved from one state to another, you know, just because
6:29
it's all in the air. I mean, we're talking thousands
6:32
of tons of soil and just overnight, you know, you could
6:36
have a snow drifts like when you have snow and wind, but this
6:40
would be dust and people couldn't even get out of their
6:43
doors and just penetrated everything.
6:45
Just overnight. And they just, they couldn't
6:48
keep anything clean. And they're sweeping their
6:51
little dugouts. They call them, you know,
6:52
there's a little mud huts in Kansas or eastern Colorado or
6:59
Oklahoma or wherever it was at and centipedes, they hear these
7:03
centipedes digging at night because and then there would be
7:06
no water. And then like the all these
7:08
other kind of bugs would just appear out of nowhere, out of
7:11
the the ground, just trying to scrounge for water.
7:14
Sound like you have lived through the Great Depression.
7:16
So I mean, sure you're not? Yeah, I feel like I have
7:20
listening to those. Not quite.
7:23
Not quite from the boys perspective.
7:25
But it definitely makes me thankful for our humble little
7:30
abode and having a fire that is dust free.
7:34
You know, I'm not because I did live in a few dust storms in
7:39
Lubbock, TX, and it was pretty miserable.
7:42
I mean, even with the doors and windows shut, you know, that
7:45
dust is just, it penetrates everything.
7:48
Yeah. So anyway, so yeah, that's.
7:51
What we're talking about what makes Texas so great, though,
7:54
it's like, it's wonderful. Oh, the dust.
7:56
It's beautiful. Yeah, Majesty of of Texas.
8:01
Yeah, it's the grit. Grit it.
8:06
It makes people gritty. Yeah, so.
8:09
So what was the the transition from fire to our topic?
8:14
Well, it was just the, well, we were talking about the flu that
8:19
you had cleaned your fireplace and that was dirty and then The
8:23
Dirty from the Dust Bowl because we talked about Linus talking
8:28
about the, you know, the pigpen and the dust.
8:32
And so now we're here. And so where are we
8:35
transitioning? To this point I see I connected
8:39
it differently. I was thinking like the fire,
8:42
like a fire requires you to like tend it.
8:45
And if you don't tend to the fire, it runs down and has to
8:49
burn at a certain heat in order to consume the fuel and produce
8:53
whatever, you know, whatever's you want.
8:55
So I was thinking like self-care is like tending a fire.
8:57
It's like, well, good, you can ignore it to your own detriment,
9:03
right? Well, that's good because we're
9:05
even though we are on some of what of the same wavelength,
9:08
we're on different wavelengths. So that's where we're on.
9:10
Different metaphorical. Wavelengths we bring a
9:12
different. The point is the same.
9:14
That's right, yeah. Yeah, I like that you got to
9:17
tend it so. So we're going to talk about
9:19
that in regards to ourselves, but also in regards to the boys
9:25
that we work with, the families that we work with, our own
9:28
families. Just the this idea just in
9:32
general of the importance of, you know, I've done a lot of
9:36
traveling over the last year on planes and things and they
9:39
always give you that spiel at the beginning about putting the
9:42
oxygen mask on 1st. Oh yeah.
9:45
Because you're not going to do anyone any good if you're
9:46
sitting there unconscious, right?
9:49
And so there's a right, there's a, the right amount of
9:53
self-care. And we're, we're obviously not
9:55
advocating that we live lives of selfishness or, you know,
9:59
putting ourselves first by any means, But, but we have to be
10:04
wise in assessing and taking stock of our own mental health,
10:10
our own physical health. And sometimes we can excuse not
10:17
taking care of ourselves because of low self esteem and putting
10:21
other people, other people's needs in front of our own, not
10:25
because of our love for them, but because of our bad opinion
10:30
of our self. So we have to like watch out for
10:33
that. And there are a variety of other
10:34
complicated things that that lead to people not taking care
10:37
of themselves. And that's, that's one of our
10:40
main kind of goals and, and missions is to teach boys that
10:46
they are worth, you know, taking care of, you know, because
10:51
they've they've been run down for very variety of reasons and
10:56
and no longer see themselves as salvageable.
11:00
And so, so we start with the little things.
11:02
Maybe let's start with what that means here at the ranch and then
11:05
we can kind of expand into some of the larger kind of issues of
11:08
self-care. So for those of you who are
11:10
listening who want a little insight into what we do here at
11:12
the ranch and and the program, we've already talked about this
11:15
to some extent in other podcasts.
11:17
We had one called the the the clothes make the man where we
11:20
talked about dress code. I think we talked about personal
11:23
hygiene to some extent in that episode.
11:27
And you know, I think we've used this metaphor of, and we've
11:31
talked about like secondary trauma, like what it is to work
11:35
with people who are, who are recovering from traumatic
11:38
history past and things like that.
11:40
You can take that on as a caregiver.
11:42
We, we struggle with that here at the ranch.
11:45
Adoptive parents struggle with that.
11:47
They kind of take on a lot of that abuse without even
11:51
recognizing it. And it can.
11:53
It can make you pretty. What's the word?
11:58
You're bitter. Bitter, sensitive, overly
12:01
sensitive, short tempered. And so you then begin like
12:05
lashing out at, at other people in the ways that your, your son
12:11
or the boy you're working with is lashing out at you without
12:14
even recognizing it. And so it takes, it takes a team
12:18
of people to work through these things.
12:20
And, and you know, in a family, hopefully you have a supportive
12:24
spouse who can kind of catch you when you kind of slip into this.
12:27
Hopefully we, we hope that we're at the ranch.
12:29
We, we hold each other accountable for these types of
12:31
things. But like I said, it begins with
12:33
the like the small things. There's a famous video that many
12:36
of you've probably seen about, you know, make your bed.
12:39
I think it's what it's called if you go onto YouTube and type in
12:42
make your bed. Yeah.
12:43
Tell our it's like a 5. Star Take that, yeah.
12:46
Five star general or something like that, giving a a speech at
12:50
a graduation and I can't remember, yeah, where it was at.
12:53
But if you want to change the world, make your bed.
12:57
Yeah. And then he just goes off on
12:59
five or six points of why that's important.
13:02
And some of it, I mean, I think the first one is probably just,
13:04
you know, you got to win. You do something right off the
13:08
bat. You accomplished something for
13:11
the day. So you're already in the win
13:14
column there. You getting off your butt.
13:17
You're being proactive. And so sometimes that's all it
13:21
takes is just starting and then doing something small that takes
13:27
literally 2 minutes to do and then it goes from there.
13:32
And so he kind of goes uses that as the catalyst of production
13:36
and and progress, and then it kind of goes on from there.
13:40
But but yeah, that's kind of like we have no idea really when
13:46
the boys come here exactly what kind of structure they've had at
13:50
home and how much structure that has been.
13:53
Maybe it's been too much, maybe it's been too overbearing on
13:57
some of that structure, too much expectation.
13:59
So that could be. And maybe their bed has always
14:01
been made for them. Yes, and they've never been
14:05
forced to do it themselves or learned how to do it or learned
14:09
how to brush their teeth properly or why that's
14:13
important. I mean, they may just not have
14:15
been taught that. And so there's, we never really
14:18
know all the insurance and outs of that.
14:20
So we just, I mean, every boy that comes in here, it's the
14:23
same expectations and it's just basically structure revolving
14:27
around activities in the morning where you're going to get up,
14:31
you're going to make your bed, you're going to take either take
14:34
two showers a day. And they have their hygiene bags
14:38
that we call them with all the, with deodorant and just all the
14:45
yeah, dental floss and they need to sweep under their bed.
14:50
And so there's just some expectations.
14:53
Laundry. Base, did you mention that?
14:55
No, I hadn't yet, but but yeah, so we're talking life skill
15:00
training as well as hygiene. I mean all kind of rolls into
15:04
one and you're just that's that structure, the habit everyday.
15:08
That's something that's important not just with hygiene,
15:11
but other habits. But you're just building, you
15:13
know, your brain when you start doing that day in and day out,
15:16
it's just like, I wake up and this is what I do.
15:18
Yeah. And once you kind of get over
15:20
that and into a habit, then you have healthy habits.
15:24
Yeah. And the Bible says, love do unto
15:28
others as you would have them do unto you.
15:32
And so that can, with our voice sometimes not hit like you want
15:38
it to because they can, they can think, well, this is the way I
15:44
treat myself like garbage because I don't think I'm worth
15:47
much. So if I'm going to treat myself
15:50
that way, then I might as well treat other people that way.
15:53
And in doing so, they're kind of like almost fulfilling that
15:56
command because they're treating other people ironically the way
15:59
they want to be treated. So you have to, in order to
16:02
carry out that command properly from Jesus, you have to like
16:08
love yourself and to the right extent, you have to be able to
16:12
appreciate and respect yourself and take care of yourself.
16:15
And, and you know, the, our body is the temple of God.
16:18
So it's on one level, it's like worship to and, and thankfulness
16:24
to God for the gifts that he's given you and taking care of
16:26
yourself and being appreciative. And, and also what what pumps
16:32
into my mind when I think of personal hygiene with boys is
16:35
just the awkwardness of the conversation at times.
16:38
And I've had to go through this with with my own boys because
16:42
the things you have to talk about are kind of taboo.
16:46
They're not the kinds of things that you talk about in polite
16:49
conversation. And so just the very act of
16:52
talking about them for some people is it makes them a little
16:56
squeamish, I think. And like less apartment to talk
17:03
about or to find the right time to talk about it.
17:06
And then you worry about like making your, your child, son or
17:11
daughter, like self-conscious or embarrassing them.
17:16
And then there's, there's always like, Oh, I don't want to hear
17:19
my dad or my mom talking about these things.
17:22
So I think it's, it's a service that we provide.
17:24
I think to a lot of a lot of parents, they really appreciate
17:27
the fact that we that we are are proactive about this and that
17:32
where it's easier for us to have those conversations with them
17:35
than it is their parents sometimes.
17:37
Yeah, I think that's true statement for sure.
17:41
And a lot of our kids are kind of going through puberty, yeah,
17:44
when they're here. So their parents may not have
17:48
had like just deodorant discussions with them were
17:52
shaving. And, you know, it's something we
17:55
talked about. I don't know if it's on the
17:57
podcast or maybe it was during like the father son thing, but
18:01
there are kind of some life milestones that sometimes a dad
18:07
doesn't get with his son necessary because he needs to
18:11
learn how to shave. And he's at Whetstone for nine
18:13
months, you know, and for some, for some guy like for I, for us,
18:21
I think about myself and will like that was not that big of a
18:24
deal for us of just like teaching him how to shave or
18:29
just having a conversation of, you know, what to be careful for
18:32
with a razor. And it's not that he needs to
18:35
shave a ton right now, but he does every once in a while need
18:39
to shave. And certainly deodorant is part
18:41
of that. But, but just being sensitive.
18:44
I, we just mentioned that that is because obviously we have
18:47
parents that are looking to send their, their boy here or have
18:51
their boy here. And that's just something that
18:54
we've noticed that is potential for a parent to grieve or miss
19:01
out on. Yeah.
19:01
And kind of be blindsided by that emotion at times.
19:03
Yeah. And so, yeah, we do have to be
19:07
sensitive to it and maybe kind of keep them informed about it.
19:11
Another thing that's difficult too, I think, is that there's a
19:15
grieving process of your, you know, this is related to him
19:18
having to shave is like, I don't want to admit as a parent that
19:24
he's growing up. Like, especially if you're
19:28
dealing if if your son is like really struggling or has been
19:31
acting out. And then there's been years of
19:35
attention and fighting and acrimony and things like you
19:38
feel like I missed, I missed out, right.
19:40
So maybe I can hold on a little longer to the childhood to get
19:44
things right before he becomes, you know, a gnarly teenager.
19:49
Like there's this. We're holding out hope that that
19:52
sweet little boy or girl, you know, because we want this
19:57
podcast to apply to like parenting of all kinds.
20:00
But in our case, it's boys like holding out hope that that that.
20:04
Child is going to come back to me and then once, once he
20:08
shaves, once he's wearing deodorant, that's it.
20:11
I've lost my chance. Yeah.
20:13
And I think there can be some real stinking thinking with
20:17
that, like, because it's a, it's a false, I think that's a false
20:21
notion that when you reach a certain age that that that's it.
20:27
You know, that's all she wrote. And we get a little hopeless in
20:29
our attitudes towards teenagers, especially in our culture.
20:34
Yeah, we want to be careful not to coddle them and let them, you
20:42
know, lead them and the the the man that God is creating them to
20:46
be. Hopefully that's for our jobs as
20:48
dads and mom being the nurturer, but dad, you know, helping to
20:53
challenge, being the one that challenge them more and you
20:56
know, have these types of conversations.
20:59
And I think it's, it's important balance to find.
21:03
And, and I was going to ask you, Axel.
21:06
So like, I know at our house with six kids, the socks, the
21:12
clothes, the towels, I mean, and they're not the only ones.
21:16
I mean, I do the same thing. It's like you just take the path
21:20
of least resistance sometimes, especially in the winter time,
21:24
you got layers. And so you know when you're
21:26
going to bed, you just like got your vest, you got your shirt,
21:29
you got your long Johns, you got your jeans.
21:31
Next thing you know, you got 5 items of clothes next to your
21:35
bed. You know, you go to bed at 10:30
21:37
and it's just like, you know, just easy enough and do a couple
21:40
days of that and you got a pile of clothes, you know, but.
21:44
And so just thinking about the difference between sometimes
21:51
it's just path of least resistance to teenagers or just
21:54
being lazy, but sometimes there's some psychological
21:58
drivers to some of the unkemptness or the lack of
22:04
hygiene. So what?
22:07
Because there could be a next level type of thing.
22:09
There's one thing to like I I think just not having a tidy
22:13
space. But then the next thing is like
22:15
not brushing your teeth, not combing your hair and not really
22:19
taking showers. I would say that's kind of some
22:22
next level, some more psychological things.
22:25
Yeah. When do we get into like the the
22:26
danger zone? Yeah.
22:28
So what's maybe we can talk about that a little bit?
22:30
Yeah, I just have an image of the, you know, the the yellow
22:32
tape that people teenagers are a little sign, you know, keep out
22:37
danger zone, that kind of thing. Like some of that's just a
22:40
little like just dark humor, but some of it is like real like
22:45
signs that the drugs might be involved, right.
22:49
That's that's always one of those things on the checklist is
22:51
like, is there a change in behavior?
22:53
They not taking care of themselves as things gotten all
22:56
of a sudden gotten really messy. Now there's no, I don't think
22:59
any real reason to be alarmed if your kid has a messy bedroom.
23:03
There's a lots of us are messier people.
23:06
So I don't want, you know, alarm bells to be going off in your
23:09
head necessarily. But if if that taken along with
23:13
another set of other indicators begin to get make you start
23:18
thinking like, you know, on the on the far end of like a danger
23:23
zone where you're talking about like sometimes a room keeps a
23:26
kid keeps a room messy because he likes to hide stuff in in the
23:28
room doesn't want you to find it.
23:30
I'm just not going to go through my room.
23:32
It's so messy. So it could be drugs.
23:35
It could be, you know, pornography.
23:37
It could be in number of things that they're not supposed to
23:39
have food, candy. You might be squirreling it away
23:43
and that's just a convenient we'd hide it.
23:47
A lot of times control is a huge issue.
23:50
Like I want to run life on my terms, so you can't tell me to
23:56
do this, so I'm going to do the opposite of what it is.
23:59
Yeah, that's a good point. We've seen that here.
24:02
Just understanding that when you it's made sense because
24:06
everything else is out of their control.
24:08
You know, they can't control that they've come here, they
24:11
can't control their parents decision.
24:14
So it's like everything in their life is out of control.
24:17
So they're going to grab on to anything that they feel like
24:21
they can control and that's one of them.
24:23
It's like, so that makes sense in that aspect of control.
24:31
Yeah, we were talking about a fancy word beforehand that Matt
24:35
Foster used to use a lot and got us thinking about called
24:39
isomorphisms, patterns that exist in one part of your life
24:43
that re emerge in another part. And it's a it's a psychological
24:47
thing that you can observe. It's used in family counseling
24:50
and individual counseling to see, OK, I behave in this way in
24:54
this situation at work and then I come home and I behave in a
24:58
similar manner. Not exactly the same, but the
25:00
shape, the, the morphism, like the shape of it is the same.
25:05
And so if if we see that kids are, you know, behaving in ways
25:11
where they're not taking care of themselves, that can be a
25:15
defense mechanism. It can be survival mode,
25:19
survival mode like fight, you know, fight or flight or freeze.
25:23
Often times boys will not take care of themselves because of
25:28
previous neglect or abuse and so it's either something they've
25:31
learned to do because they have such a low self esteem or
25:35
because messiness and smelliness is off putting to adults.
25:41
And I'm less likely to be abused or molested in certain in
25:45
certain situations we see boys who just don't want to take
25:49
showers for that reason. I'd rather stink because it's a
25:52
way for me to protect myself. Yeah.
25:55
And there's a kind of next level traumas which we've seen at
25:59
times of kids not wanting to go into the bathroom or shower
26:04
because things have happened, you know, in their past in those
26:08
settings that kind of are triggers.
26:12
And sometimes we have no idea about that stuff until.
26:16
Right. That can be one of the first
26:18
things. Yeah, this.
26:19
Kid not, I mean, everybody loves a hot shower, right?
26:23
It's just like, yeah, but it's like, well, if every time you
26:26
took a hot shower you got molested, you know, or something
26:30
like something bad like that happened during those times.
26:33
I mean, that is something and has happened here that has been
26:36
revealed that there's a natural reticence to doing those things
26:41
because of the the body's response to that.
26:44
Yeah, yeah, The body keeps score.
26:46
It's the famous book also this idea that like all behaviour has
26:51
meaning. That's a phrase that we use here
26:53
and show here a lot. And like counselling and therapy
26:55
that, you know, if, if your son or daughter is struggling with
27:00
like issues of cleanliness, like you can get mad about it And you
27:04
can, you know, put the foot down and, and try and force
27:07
compliance. Or you can, you can think about
27:10
what that behaviour means. Like is it a, is it a, a power
27:14
struggle that you're having? And if so, let's have a
27:17
conversation about why. Let's get to kind of some of the
27:21
root of it. Like like we talked about
27:24
earlier, maybe there's some some depression, maybe there's some
27:27
drug abuse, maybe there's something that's happened in the
27:30
past. And this is just their way of
27:31
like communicating that without saying it.
27:35
So use it as an opportunity to to open a dialogue in a
27:38
discussion if you can. Well, at the same time, not like
27:44
like going to the extreme and making assumptions like yeah,
27:47
we've had, I have 4 kids and some of them are neat, some of
27:50
them aren't. You know, I, I think some of
27:52
it's just temperament and personality and some people
27:57
neatness just isn't as important, right.
28:00
You know it's the old, the old adage a the clean desk is a sign
28:03
of a sick mind you never heard. That well, that reminds me of a
28:10
oh man, what is that? It's a suspense thriller show
28:15
about this husband that gets husband and wife get divorced
28:19
and he's like a super perfectionist and that was like,
28:22
he expected so much out of her and like all the soup labels and
28:27
everything and the cans. Were like I got to be.
28:29
Faced properly, faced properly. And anyway, the dude was just a
28:34
psychopath. And she ends up moving over to,
28:37
like, the West Coast and like Big Sur, California.
28:41
And the suspenseful part was like, she trying to run away
28:45
from this guy. She's been away from this guy
28:46
for years. And then she gets home and one
28:49
day and she has this, like, weird feeling and she goes and
28:53
opens all the cupboards and, like, all of her soup cans are
28:58
turned. All of her dishes are perfect
29:00
and lined up like. And so she knew he had been
29:03
there. And so it was just like, So
29:06
anyway, yeah, that's that's kind of you don't.
29:07
Remember the movie? Maybe it'll come to me, I don't
29:12
remember it offhand well. Sounds like what lies beneath,
29:15
You know, So that Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer film, it's
29:18
kind of creepy. Like it was.
29:20
Oh, it was. Who's Cindy Crawford?
29:25
Pretty Woman. She no.
29:26
Julia Roberts. Julia Roberts.
29:28
I think it was a Julia Roberts movie.
29:30
Oh OK. Is it sleeping with the enemy?
29:34
That may be it. OK, who's the who's the guy?
29:39
In that, I don't know. I don't know.
29:40
I don't know. It wasn't Richard Gere, was it?
29:43
Like they didn't like reprise the Pretty Woman thing dynamic,
29:47
did they? I don't think.
29:48
So OK, anyways, we'll yeah. No, yeah, it reminds me of Mommy
29:52
dearest too. Like no more wire hangers, you
29:54
know, Ever. Yes.
29:57
So, yeah, sometimes you're, you're the reason for the the
30:01
kid acting out like you need to take a step back, you know, take
30:04
a chill pill, as they say, check yourself before you wreck
30:07
yourself. You can be instigating and
30:10
aggravating those, those compulsions that your kid have
30:15
to separate themselves or that like take some ownership of
30:18
something, right. I got, I got to have control of
30:20
something in my life. And so I'm going to like grasp
30:23
at that. Yeah.
30:26
It is sleeping with the enemy, by the way.
30:28
Nailed it. Nice one.
30:30
Actually nailed it. Nice one.
30:32
The little grey cells. Yes.
30:34
Still working. Got it.
30:35
Yeah. OK, where we at?
30:39
Well, I am at daylight savings daylight.
30:45
I want to spend a little a moment just to go off on
30:48
daylight savings. I hate daylight savings this
30:51
this time of year that we have it just like bakes in
30:55
depression. Like why does it have to?
31:00
Why can we not have an extra hour of light at the end of our
31:03
day? We have to go right Into
31:05
Darkness after work. Right.
31:08
Like. The stars are not so.
31:10
So that I can have an extra hour in the morning.
31:13
No, that doesn't work for me, Brandon.
31:14
You need an extra hour or so you can do the clean machine.
31:17
No, I want nothing to do with that extra hour in the morning.
31:20
I don't. I mean, I understand if you're a
31:22
morning person and you're like, ah, it's just start the day with
31:25
sunshine. But I don't know, it's just it
31:29
depresses me and I, I think like.
31:31
Would not be an issue of. Self-care we have to be careful
31:34
in these days of darkness shorter days there's all kinds
31:38
of psychological studies about that what what that does to
31:41
your. Yeah you know circadian rhythms
31:44
and. And I've heard this, I, I don't
31:48
know if it's true. I think it's probably 80% chance
31:51
that this is true, that the amount of incidences of, of
31:55
heart attack and stroke and suicide and everything spikes on
32:01
the, the days of the year when, you know, we change the time
32:06
like it's just added stress. Oh, so there's there could be
32:09
some conspiracy theories. Definitely 100.
32:12
Percent Conspiracy theories, Government purposeful.
32:15
Around the population, daylight savings.
32:17
Do the deep dive. You'll find all kinds of crazy
32:20
stuff people think about why we do it.
32:22
Do you know why we do it? I have no idea.
32:24
See. Yeah.
32:25
I just know that you. Just do it right.
32:27
Because that's cuz. We're sheeple turn the clock
32:30
back to the clock forward. Why right.
32:32
Either it's maybe it's a giant joke.
32:34
The only people who don't do it is Arizona, right?
32:36
That's right. So why doesn't?
32:38
Arizona out there, they're smart.
32:40
Yeah. It's a giant joke that, you
32:42
know, the the elites are playing on us or the Illuminati or, you
32:47
know, a cabal of some sort got to be involved with that, right?
32:50
Yeah. Things I've heard, I've heard.
32:52
Talks about. That I've heard that the extra
32:55
hour of daylight in the morning is for safety for kids at bus
32:58
stops. I've heard that.
33:00
That seems ridiculous that we would like redesign our whole,
33:04
you know, nation schedule. Do other countries do it?
33:07
It's just US, does it? I don't think, I don't know.
33:11
I was wondering that myself, I bet.
33:14
I've heard that it's a, it's a, a merchant kind of lobby that
33:18
wanted it to be darker sooner so that when you're driving home
33:21
from work, you see the stores light up and you want to go in
33:25
and buy stuff. There's some type of psychology
33:28
like moth drawn to a flame thing.
33:30
We think Mothman. Does that make sense?
33:32
No, I don't know that. Doesn't make sense.
33:36
I've heard extra extra hour in the morning for farm chores to
33:39
get done before school. Yeah, but there's like, how
33:44
many, what percentage of farms are there?
33:46
I mean, that may make sense for this little neck in the woods.
33:49
I know. But but like back when we were
33:50
more of a agrarian kind of rural society, maybe there was a
33:54
reason for that. I've heard like World War 2
33:57
stuff like bombing sites and lights and saving electricity
34:01
and things like that. But.
34:03
I don't know. I don't think you'll ever get a.
34:05
Straight answer, yeah, maybe chat can figure it out for us
34:08
and do all the research. But here's my point.
34:10
This time of year, we have to be particularly careful about our
34:13
our mental health and of slipping into depression for all
34:17
kinds of reasons. You know, holidays are not
34:19
always happy times. They're reminders of people that
34:21
we've lost. There's stress from people
34:24
visiting. There's increased financial
34:26
duties and obligations with gift giving and traveling.
34:30
And there's not eating well and you put off exercise and you
34:34
don't sleep as well because you might be anxious and living in
34:37
tight quarters and just a whole host of issues that that can
34:42
contribute to a a psychological malaise.
34:47
Right. Oh, nice.
34:48
Yeah. Malaise.
34:50
Malaise is that S ever silent? Malay.
34:55
Yeah, and that probably isn't French.
34:56
French. Yeah, probably we've, we've
34:58
Americanized because we're Americans.
35:00
Americans. Yeah.
35:04
So, yeah. Well, what, what, what time are
35:09
we at? Are we at about 40 minutes ish?
35:14
Yeah. I don't think we're quite that
35:15
long, but yeah, I think that's we kind of got the point across.
35:18
I just was. Yeah, I know.
35:20
I think it's a good, you know, it's December, getting into
35:23
Christmas, New Year, it's always a good time to take stock of
35:29
those things. And we're all, as we mentioned,
35:31
we're all a little bit dirty, should I say, or messy.
35:37
We all have our habits and but just as as parents trying to
35:43
find the balance of, you know, we don't want to be overbearing
35:46
and as the Bible says, exacerbating our kids.
35:50
The best thing that we can do is just model for our kids healthy
35:55
habits of cleanliness and just being orderly.
35:59
Order is good. I think God is a God of order as
36:03
we look at the Bible and for us to be able to take heed of that
36:10
or, or, or just take stock of that and to follow that that
36:15
order is create structure, you know, and you're a systems guy.
36:19
Systems are important to be able to move the needle and to create
36:25
habits. And and then there's just
36:29
keeping out an eye out for the signs of just unhealthy when you
36:33
really get into not brushing your teeth, not taking showers,
36:40
not, you know, letting your hair just totally grow out and get
36:43
nappy and, yeah, erratic behaviors, all these things, you
36:48
know, something else is going on.
36:50
And as a parent, it's needed to be aware of some of those
36:53
things, Yeah. So fathers, don't exacerbate
36:58
your sons to wrath, provoke. Yeah.
37:02
Provoke. There might be a translation out
37:04
there, though. Yeah, Exacerbate.
37:06
That's a good word. But challenge kiddos.
37:10
Yeah, they have to. They have to learn how to clean
37:14
up after themselves, even if you got to tell them 1000 times.
37:17
Yeah. You know, we're not doing them
37:19
any favors by doing it for them. Yeah, don't, don't tell them
37:23
1000 times. Yeah, have a.
37:26
Yeah, have a system in place to drive that point home to where
37:31
there's a little bit of pain. Yeah.
37:34
Yeah, they got a phone. Take away the phone.
37:37
My dad had something that that we would do around the house
37:40
called the the Clean machine. Oh yeah.
37:43
And if if the house got to that point where it needed to to get
37:47
done, we would all be straight up kind of like military style.
37:52
Let's we're going to make this place shine like the top of the
37:56
Chrysler Building, like Miss Miss Hannigan and Annie.
37:59
And we we learned that when it was clean machine time.
38:02
You moved. Yeah.
38:04
Yeah. You didn't want to.
38:06
You want Dad to be getting on you when?
38:08
It was clean. She's going to be dropping the
38:10
hammer, man. Yeah, you don't want the PTSD.
38:15
You mentioned haircut made me think of Thomas Brown.
38:17
We always like to wrap up with a tribute to the great Thomas
38:21
Brown. I think he got a haircut
38:23
recently. Did you see?
38:24
Yeah, he did. Yeah, yeah, looking sharp, it
38:26
looks. Good.
38:27
It looks good. I like the the the the madman
38:30
kind of mad scientist look, though, you know, kind of
38:33
Einstein look he's got going on like, you know.
38:37
Yeah, but but it did. It was a good cut.
38:40
I appreciate it. I meant to say something to him
38:42
about it. So.
38:43
Yeah. Nice, nice, nice cut, Mr. Brown.
38:46
Nice do, Yeah. I hate to interrupt this podcast
38:51
for a special announcement, but this is Thomas and I would like
38:54
to inform your hosts that I have not had a haircut for three or
38:58
four months. I'm not sure what they're
39:00
talking about. And actually, I'm quite
39:04
concerned because if they don't notice that my hair is longer,
39:08
that could be a sign of they're getting older.
39:12
And we all know that when you get older, you start to see
39:16
things. Anyway guys, my hair is exactly
39:22
the way it's always been, just combed back.
39:25
Give me your head with hair. Long, beautiful hair.
39:29
And I am going to get a cut soon.
39:32
Shoulder length longer. But just so you know, it's not
39:36
going to be, I just stepped out of the Paris Island induction
39:39
center because we know what that haircut would look like.
39:42
It'll just be a little bit shorter.
39:43
So you can talk about it in four months and say, wow, Mr. Browns
39:46
hair, hair got cut. It looks great.
39:54
We return you now to the podcast you were previously listening
39:58
to. So thanks, Thomas, for helping
40:00
out with this and thank you, Brandon, for making the time.
40:03
Yeah. And I look forward to talking to
40:06
you again in the New year then coming up.
40:07
Looking forward. To got #68 all right, I can here
40:11
68 podcast. We got past that one.
40:13
We did. We did.
40:15
The one, the number that comes before 68, Yeah.
40:18
So thank you all for listening and we'll talk to you next year.
40:21
I'll have time to sharpen. See you.
40:31
Whetstone Boys Ranch is a therapeutic boarding school
40:34
located in the scenic Ozarks of southern Missouri.
40:38
It was founded in 2011 to serve families from around the country
40:42
who are struggling with challenging behaviors from their
40:44
12 to 16 year old sons. Our mission is to sharpen the
40:48
character of young men. Please visit
40:51
whetstoneboysranch.com if you want to learn more about our
40:54
program or about how to contact us for help.
40:57
Thanks for listening and we hope to catch you next time on A Time
41:00
to Sharpen.