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Millennial Parents are Changing Things For the Better · Millennial Mental Health Channel

0:00
Did you enjoy the halftime show? Yeah, I liked it. I thought
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it was pretty good. I thought Usher was exquisitely sweaty. Oh yeah,
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I saw a tweet that was like when Usher took off his shirt and was
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like sweaty and glistenian. Shit. That's when I knew R and B was
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back. This is Millennial Mental Health Channel. I'm doctor Justin Romano, a
0:22
child adolescent psychiatry fellow, and I'm Medikoreo, a licensed clinical therapist. Our
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podcast is here because we wanted to start a much need to conversation about mental
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health. Our goal is to teach you as much as we can by sharing
0:34
our own experiences and interviewing experts in the mental health field. We will discuss
0:38
topics like mood disorders, psychotic disorders, substance use, personality disorders, and
0:43
many more. Millennial Mental Health Channel buy Millennials for everyone. We hope you
0:47
enjoyed. Today's episode. MMHC is a production of Speaker from iHeartMedia. I
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Heart So the topic of parenting and uh, welcome to the show. It
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is parenting for today. Uh, and we're gonna give you some general advice
1:07
on parenting stuff too and parenting of today shapes the mental health of tomorrow's generation.
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So that's why we wanted to talk about it on this mental health podcast.
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So it's nice to be here. It's nice to have you. Thank
1:21
you, thank you so much for listening. Eddie. You got any shout
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outs for me today? I already gave it usher like that halftime show,
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Oh my god, Alicia Keys was there, Ludicris will I am, Jermaine
1:34
dupri little John. Little John I think like lives in Vegas or has a
1:38
residency, so he didn't have to go far. Probably all though, all
1:47
the old uh, all the old artists at some point have a reticency,
1:52
so he probably is true. But man, I as a huge Raider fan,
1:57
I've heard nothing but good things of the Vegas Super Bowl, so I'm
2:01
glad. One of my uncles kept saying, Oh, that stadium's paid off
2:06
today. Yeah, what a billion dollars to build. They should have spent
2:10
two. Is that good? Make two stadiums next to each other. If
2:15
only the Chiefs didn't win, you know, that would have just made it
2:19
that much better. I was hoping for a tie. I didn't know they
2:24
just shake hands and say we're good. Well, there's at the Olympics recently.
2:30
Right, there's the two guys in the in the high jump that agreed
2:35
to have the gold medal. Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah,
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one of them was from Qatar. Oh yeah, yeah, sure,
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first time I'm hearing about it. But I like it, like you were
2:46
the old sportsmanship, commercial sportsmanship. Try it. But then it was the
2:51
other one where the guy like hit the basketball out of bounds and then the
2:54
ref called it the other way and then they called the time out and the
2:58
guy was in the hunter's a coach. I knocked it out of bounds and
3:01
the coach is like, you know what to do, and then he told
3:04
the ref and then he changed the call and they lost the game. That
3:08
shit never happens. Okay, sorry, that never happens. Well, I
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got a big shout out for my wife, who got me this really cool
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ace Ventura. Oh nice? Is that just? I know? It looks
3:23
very similar. Yes, I was a Spentura for what two three Christmases ago?
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So alrighty, then that's it for shout outs Christmas and Halloween, he
3:35
said for Christmas, Oh, I always do that. I always mix up
3:39
holidays and dates. Moving on, any story time, story time. I
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mean, if this is about parenting and just children in general, I feel
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like we're going to have a similar story just in terms of being kind of
3:54
little troubled kids. I remember this distinctly. It was like second grade and
4:02
we used the chart where you had cards right, and you had a green,
4:06
yellow, and red card, and if you did something wrong or whatever
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right, you'd go to a yellow and you're like, oh shit, I'm
4:13
nice. And then if you got a red card that was bad, like
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you were that was not good. I don't think I ever got a red
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card, got a lot of yellow cards. I didn't think anything of it.
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It was like whatever, punishment is a punishment. We get to the
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end of the year and the like last day of school party, there's a
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pinata. We're like, oh my god, we're all gonna get a pinata.
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Do you know what they did for the order of the pinata? They
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made you last. They did well, they did, and they did it
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in order of least amount of yellow cards to most amount of yellow cards.
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Oh and I was last, And I don't think it was close, like
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I think it was pretty like everybody was tied for first, and then I
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was last. So I feel like I'm gonna be honest. I feel like
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that had an impact on me of like, wow, I need to do
5:08
better because there might be a pinata in my future and I don't want to
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be last. That's a beautiful, beautiful visual of just little Eddie watching everyone
5:17
else have their turn at this pinata and you just shedding alone. Te your
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oversized t shirt right my little tummy, and then shorts that went past my
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knees because by that point I probably needed to get like adults small because the
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kid's size wasn't fitting me anymore. Yeah, yep, and you were an
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adorable child based on your profile picture, so I can only imagine the sadness.
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Yeah, it was. It was tough man. Your turn very similar.
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I was a bit of a class clown. I got a lot of
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yellow cards in my day too. And it isn't it funny how you remember
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those things? You remember the things that shape your behavior. And as someone
6:02
who works with a lot of kids in school, I noticed that for elementary
6:05
school kids it seems like they just get sent home so often these days,
6:10
like they have behavioral issues and the immediate thing is okay, called parents send
6:13
them home and that's just giving them exactly what they want. So it's a
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really tricky thing because if you start sending them home and they're going to act
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out even more because they're going to know, Oh, if I lose my
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bananas, they're gonna send me home, and I don't want to be at
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school. So yeah, slippery slope, go back to the green, yellow,
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red card, is what I'm trying to say. But I was a
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bit of a class clown. And there was a time in sixth grade when
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I got in trouble for making fun of my music teacher and the way that
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she spoke. Yeah, she had some yeah, and I was kind of
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mimicking her and mocking her. Yeah, not cool. I've made some mistakes
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in my life. So she actually made me write on a chalkboard like a
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hundred times like I will not mimic and mock other people. So, you
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know, probably good thing. But when I came home and explained it to
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my parents, I did what all kids do. I tried to change the
7:05
story a little bit, make me sound like not so bad. I make
7:10
it sound like, you know, it was her fault. But my father
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did not buy it at all and actually expressed to me that he was really
7:16
disappointed in me for mocking and mimicking my teacher there. And I think that
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was such an important thing because he wasn't afraid me to call me out on
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my BS and my behavior, and he knew that being disappointed in me was
7:30
a big motivator. Like I really wanted to make my dad proud and happy,
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and so the fact that I let him down on that one, I
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mean, still remember the story from twenty years ago. I'm just disappointed you
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didn't feel you could tell me the truth. Oh I'm sorry, I'll do
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anything. So the reason for the episode actually justin sent me something on the
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Instagram and it talked about than in the eighties, forty three percent of dads
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admitted to not changing diapers, and now the number of millennial dads that don't
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change diapers is less than three percent. So way better people are sharing responsibilities
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as they should. And it kind of just peaud our interest of like,
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oh, like maybe we could talk a little bit about how things have shifted.
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We've we've talked about it here and there for different reasons, whether it's
8:24
topic of spanking or uh just overall, like the world kids and teens live
8:30
in now. But we just thought this would be a good topic to talk
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about, and who better than to give parenting advice than someone that doesn't have
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kids like myself. You're basically a kid, though you're like emotional maturity wise,
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right. Oh fuck, that didn't make it better. I'm gonna take
8:52
that one back. To take that with back. I meant to it as
8:56
a lighthearted joke and then realized no should have been live with the joyfulness of
9:03
a child. There we go, that's what I really meant. I just
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said something really hurtful instead, I'm just disappointed. You can tell me I'm
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sorry, I'm blewing. You want me to ground myself, I'll ground myself
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two weeks nor your last in line for the pinata? My friend he no,
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but real like when the teacher said that was how we're determining it,
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I knew immediately. I was like, I am, I'm not touching this.
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I'm not getting a turn. Goddamn. So we looked up that article
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was actually from Motherly, which is a whole website on parenting, and we
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will put the link in our show notes if you are curious. The article
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also makes some other claims that millennial father spent three times more time with their
10:01
children than their fathers did. So very cool. And millennials are changing parenting
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a lot and in a lot of good ways, and of course on the
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internet sometimes they talk about the bad ways that parenting is happening these days,
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so we wanted to discuss it. One study we looked at from Garcia at
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All in twenty twenty looked at over eight hundred mostly LATINX individuals to look at
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parenting trends and did find that younger generations tended to have more warmth, less
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yelling, less corporal punishment, which I think we can agree with good things
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which might have been nice when I was younger. Yeah, did you get
10:43
spanked a lot? Oh? Man? Okay, so I know my mom
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listens to the show. I don't know about a lot, but it did
10:52
happen. I think, sorry, Mom, it did happen. We're okay.
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It happened. And I've seen it too, like I've seen it with
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like like cousins. It happened, It happened. I think that's why,
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like when you call in to like chop protective services or to make like an
11:16
abuse report or whatever, they do seem to consider culture because for some cultures,
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it's still like seems appropriate. You and I now know like no,
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like let's let's not spank, and let's not a good way to teach,
11:31
you know, behaviors or reinforce good behaviors. So we know that, but
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I think, you know, they'll take that into consideration because there are cultures
11:39
that still kind of engage in those activities. That's true. I actually worked
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with a family once as an immigrant family, and the kids got taken out
11:46
of the house because of spanking and corporal punishment, and it was wildly traumatic
11:52
to take them out of the house because then they like went into the foster
11:54
care system for a while, and you know, mom had to do a
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bunch of classes and and she didn't speak English, and it was just a
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huge mess. And she was just doing what was totally normal in her culture
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and she didn't know any different. So I always trying to take that into
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account. Yes, no shame if you do spank, And technically, you
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know, that's very legal in a lot of different places. So yeah,
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we'll talk about why it's not really that effective and why you shouldn't. We
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looked up some other sources and according to Gerberlife Dot com and that is the
12:28
same Gerber for the Gerber baby. And parenting has changed in a lot of
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different ways, And some of the stats and facts on it are that people
12:37
are starting families a lot later. Millennials are getting married around age thirty on
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average as opposed to twenty three year olds with previous generations, and twenty three
12:46
was the average in nineteen seventy, So people are getting married a lot later.
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This allows for people to get a little bit more emotional maturity. You
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notice that the difference between twenty three years old and thirty years old is that
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usually most people's do brains are fully developed by thirty, so you get a
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little bit more emotional control. You can control yourself a little bit better,
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which can change your parenting style. You wrote on the show notes what we
13:13
like at twenty three The first thing I thought drunk, not the most responsible
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twenty three year old at Diamond Palace. Yeah, if you're ever in the
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Forest Grove, Oregon area, go see Diamond Palace. If it's still standing.
13:31
I think it is. I think they change owners like in twenty twenty,
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but I think it's still there. I hope, no, No,
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it still is. Yeah, people are getting married later, and this is
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largely due to like financial factors. Women are working more and have more stress
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and pressure from their work to put in the time at work before they have
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children before they get married, and so people are putting off having kids.
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Yeah, I think too. I think people are feeling more empowered to choose,
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like what is it that they want to do, like with their so
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the trajectory of their life. I think we can probably look up the stat
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but I think the amount of people our age that like aren't having children is
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a lot higher than what it was before. And I think, you know,
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there's whole like subreddits on it, like Onreddit of like not having children
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and yeah, like you said, people just waiting until later until they feel
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like they're in a better position. Like, I don't think that's as abnormal
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as it probably sounded back back in the day. Both my parents I think
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my mom was twenty one when I was born. Wow, I could not
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imagine. All right, anyway, I know, right, Yeah. Another
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thing that's really changed parenting has been the Internet. Like everything else, the
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internet kind of fucks some things up. We've heard parents and in lass say
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things like when we were raising kids, we just didn't we didn't have anyone
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other there our parents to ask. We just flew by the seat of our
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parts. But now we have like all the parenting knowledge at our fingertips,
14:50
and studies have shown that info gets used a lot. I don't for me
14:54
again, no children, but if I have a question, my phone's out
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and I'm looking it up and I'm finding an answer. I don't know if
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it's the right answer, but I'm finding an answer. But with the Internet
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does come things like comparences, comparents, comparisons, holy crap, Okay,
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here we go. Comparisons and judgment, especially when coming from influencers. That
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is the one. Like influencers like whether it's for parenting, how you live
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your life, work like you can get You can see stuff on there that
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like makes you feel like you're not doing a good enough job. There's things
15:31
like your baby should eat X, Y and Z, and if they aren't,
15:35
then they're getting behind. They're not you're not taking care of your kid
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as much as you should. And it's all stuff that's not true. It's
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just somebody is just that has a large following into saying it. And the
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hard part is nowadays I think a lot of people equate large social media presence
15:50
and following with being correct and knowledgeable when that's really not the case a lot
15:54
of the time. Yeah, and this is something I saw with with my
15:58
son and my family, is that it was nice having the Internet and asking
16:03
questions and what equipment do we need and how do we handle this, and
16:06
how do we get our baby to sleep and how do we feed better?
16:08
But sometimes it was information overload, especially when it was coming from from influencers,
16:14
where Yeah, there is a lot of pressure to be perfect. And
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that was one of the statistics that came across in researching the show is that
16:22
millennial parents, compared to other generations, feel like they have to be the
16:26
perfect parent more than previous generations. So it's a lot of pressure that social
16:30
media is putting on people to be perfect, to have that perfect family,
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and that's hard on people because no one's perfect. But communication and dialogue is
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also a big change for this new generation because it's emphasized more. In the
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past, it was a lot of like I'm going to tell you what to
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do. You're the child, I'm the parent, But kids are involved in
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the decision making process a lot more than they were in the past. And
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kids are being taught a lot more emotional literacy when were in the past.
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How to understand yourself, how to understand your emotions, how to talk about
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it, how to get it out, how to process it, and all
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of these things seem pretty dang good to me. Another thing we've seen in
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our research is that millennial parents are also saving financially for their child's future.
17:15
There's things like five twenty nine plans where you can start to put away money
17:18
for college for later in life. I look at our kids at the high
17:22
school where a lot of them I feel like, are just more knowledgeable about
17:26
the cost of school and the cost of post high school education and programs not
17:32
just college but trades, vocational school, things like that. I think they're,
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like you said, they're more involved and more aware of things when before
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it's like, hell, yeah, promisory note, I'm gonna sign that shit
17:45
like we're good to go. And then you graduate and then you get an
17:48
email three months after you graduate like okay, you got three months to start
17:52
paying back. I'm like, oh damn, the who signed this? So
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yeah. I think millennial parents, because we've been there, done that,
18:00
or they've been there, done that, they understand like, okay, we
18:03
go, we gotta look at our options. Just school and higher education in
18:07
this country in general has become so out of reach without either crazy rich parents
18:15
or loans, that's pretty much the only way that people can afford to go
18:18
to college. According to the Pew Research Center, millennials are less likely to
18:30
live with the other parent of their child and more likely to live with their
18:34
parents or other family member like a grandparent in previous generations. So over half
18:40
of millennials are not married, and then one in five millennial fathers are single
18:45
dads. So that's twenty percent. There's a lot of single dads out there,
18:49
as opposed to fifteen percent for single fathers in Gen X and only four
18:53
percent of baby boomers. So there has been a lot of changes to the
18:57
family unit over the past couple of years, and that inherently changes parenting too.
19:02
I didn't even think about that. That's that's interesting statistic. So those
19:06
are some of the ways that parenting is changing for millennials compared to previous generations.
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There's also the idea of like the emphasis of the value of rough and
19:14
tumble play. I know Justin has some thoughts on it. What do you
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think. And this is usually the type of play between dads and kids,
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although it can be from any parent, but this is the type of play
19:25
that's really important for child development, especially when they're young. And it's theorized
19:30
that this play is important because it teaches you boundaries in play. And we
19:36
have noticed that, like in the post COVID world, there are a lot
19:38
of kids that just are socially and emotionally behind where they should be. And
19:44
I think it's because they missed out on a lot of this play with peers.
19:47
With adults being out of social settings, you don't learn those boundaries.
19:51
So I want to compare it to puppies because everybody loves puppies. So when
19:56
puppies are playing, they're learning a lot about how to play with each other,
20:03
like how hard to bite, where to bite that's not going to hurt
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you know, how far to go, when to be submissive, like apologize
20:10
for what you do. And it's interesting a lot of dogs who don't get
20:15
that puppy play, like dogs that are traumatized, dogs that are kept in
20:18
kennel's don't get that interaction with others. They don't really learn how to play.
20:22
They don't really gain a lot of those skills, and so playing later
20:25
in life is difficult. The humans are really similar. Kids need to learn
20:30
how to play without hurting each other, and this also helps teach concepts of
20:34
like self regulation. So studies suggests that rough and tumble play does help reduce
20:41
aggression. You'd think it was rough and tumble, it's active, you're getting
20:45
some aggression out, energy out, but that actually helps reduce uncontrolled aggression later,
20:51
and that motion of the play helps brain development. How to use force,
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how to take impact, balance, leverage, all these things that are
21:00
useful in adult that is almost adults that are second nature that we didn't even
21:03
think about. We do it on a day to day basis, but kids
21:06
still have to learn it. So they missed out on like potential like rough
21:10
and tumble play, that stuff like when they were younger. The older kids
21:12
are like the older teens who missed out on stuff too from COVID. I
21:18
think of it the same way of like they missed out on just social interactions
21:21
of how to behave with one another, how to make for I've heard so
21:26
much over the last couple of years. Kids will straight up say it's really
21:30
hard to make friends. I don't know how to make friends anymore. Back
21:33
in mind, dude, But it feels like it used to be like these
21:37
kids would just have class together. You sit next to each other, we're
21:40
lab partners. Cool, now we're friends, that kind of thing. But
21:42
now it feels like there was that two to three year period where kids are
21:47
missing out on that and they just didn't know what to do. Like once
21:51
we kind of came back in our semi regular situations, and I think there's
21:56
a couple of different factors at play. I've been watching a lot of Ted
21:59
talks on how smartphones impact our development and our society, and because I did
22:07
one on that, but watching yours, I was watching my own Ted Talk
22:15
over and over and over again again and again, and I blow a whistle
22:22
and I keep watching and also totally now I'm just tooting my own horn.
22:27
But the Ted talk is over a quarter million views, which I cannot believe.
22:33
So that's kind of cool. But in the new Ted Talks that I'm
22:37
watching, not just my old Ted Talk, it talks about how when you
22:41
break down time usage for young people these days, like an average eighteen year
22:45
old, Yeah they're at school, Yeah, they're doing obligations. Yeah,
22:48
they're doing ADLs activities of daily living. But when it comes to their free
22:53
time, ninety three percent of an average eighteen year old free time is spent
22:59
on the phone or on screen. So yeah, ninety three percent. So
23:03
we've noticed that from a generational standpoint, kids in this new generation are less
23:07
likely to go out and spend time with friends because they do it on their
23:11
phones. They're less rebellious, they don't go out and spend time with friends,
23:17
so they have less incentive to drive because they get all the entertainment and
23:21
connection that they think they need from their phone. So all of these things
23:25
are changing the human experience in a way that's never really been seen before.
23:30
You know, I have noticed that there's a lot of kids who are like
23:33
juniors and seniors who don't have their license yet, who just don't don't feel
23:37
Like when I was like fifteen six, I'm like, let's go, let's
23:41
get this breaking permit, And everybody used to have it. So in California,
23:47
they'd print out like this paper permit and it was like a few sheets
23:49
of paper and then they'd fold it and then we'd put it in our little
23:53
like lanyard thing. That had like our key, like the little clear pouch
23:57
or the clear like cardhole they're put in their heavy keys on it. You
24:02
just have the long lanyard hanging out your pocket. Now, it's like,
24:06
yeah, that makes sense. Less desire to do that if you got everything
24:11
you need in your pocket. Other studies have shown that the connections you make
24:15
online are not as deep. They're very superficial, and they lead to a
24:19
sense of loneliness. And it does seem like there is a push and a
24:25
movement to understand that there is a real loneliness epidemic in our country and our
24:30
society, and especially in this younger generation who just feels so detached from the
24:36
real from the stuff in our day to day lives the things right in front
24:40
of us because ninety three percent of their free time is just spent staring at
24:44
a screen. So discussing questions, there was a Reddit article that said something
24:49
to the effect of millennial parents are shit and their kids are shit. Why
24:56
do we think there's so much anger about this? And I think I know
25:02
the answer to the second one. But do we think people have been saying
25:04
this for generations? Yes? I do think people have been saying this for
25:08
generations where it's just a cycle. Yeah, it's just a cycle where the
25:12
older generations say there are so many problems with this young generation. In researching
25:18
this, I found a lot of positive stuff, and we've talked about it.
25:22
We're more gentle, we're talking with kids more, we're teaching social and
25:25
emotional awareness, and all of these things are pretty good. I had a
25:29
hard time finding articles that actually pointed to how any bad things are coming out
25:34
of these changes in parenting. So I think overall it's just a tough thing
25:41
where it's older generations are always going to gripe about the younger generations. What
25:45
do you think, Eddie. They never say anything good. It's never like,
25:49
oh, I think this generation's got it right. No, it's always
25:52
something to argue about. So I think the anger about it too is just
25:56
like we're just in that cycle. Like people were mad before, they're going
26:00
to be mad again. I will say, like anecdotally, like we are
26:04
having a little bit of a hard time with kids and teens, like at
26:07
the high school of just like we're having a hard time, and some of
26:12
that hard time can potentially be attributed to boundaries and stuff at home. For
26:21
example, kids in school whatever, doing the homework, staying on top of
26:26
stuff. They leave for a week, don't tell anybody. Turns out they
26:30
were on a trip. They're on a vacation in the middle of October.
26:34
They come back, don't want to do any of their catch up work,
26:37
don't want to catch up on anything, and their parents are just kind of
26:40
like, well, you know, we went this is just a good time
26:42
to go on vacation, when it's like, is this really good time to
26:45
go vacation. You're in the middle of school, So like, just stuff
26:49
like that, Like we're definitely seen stuff where like kids are having a harder
26:53
time with boundaries, and it's not just because they want to have a harder
26:56
time. I think it's because the boundaries that just really aren't there consistently,
27:03
if that makes sense. Yeah, And I've been wondering a little bit recently
27:07
too, how yes, there is less corporal punishment, there is, yes
27:11
force, there is less of the authoritative or authoritarian parenting going on. So
27:18
I wonder if just what we see is changing our perspective of what parenting is,
27:23
because you do see a lot of kids these days just losing it in
27:27
public, and it's hard to compare like, was this always happening? Is
27:30
it getting worse? And I wonder if that coercive, that angry that you're
27:37
gonna sit down, you're gonna listen to me, that that type of parent
27:40
that was more common in the past, I wonder if that was better for
27:45
keeping control in social situations. So it looked like things were going better.
27:51
It looked like the kids were more well behaved, but really they weren't learning
27:56
any of the self regulation skills. They were just in fear of their pas
28:00
parents. And it's hard to say because millennial parents are still in the process
28:04
of raising these kids, so it's hard to know what the full long term
28:07
effects are going to be. But I wonder if kids are gonna have more
28:11
self regulation skills because they're learning how to do it on their own instead of
28:15
just doing it through fear. I don't know, just a theory. I
28:18
remember having a conversation with a parent years ago one of my first jobs,
28:22
and they had said something to the effect of, like, to me,
28:27
because I was the therapist for the kid, like, well, we just
28:30
need, you know, the big scary football player to tell him what he's
28:33
supposed to do. And I'm just and I told him like, that is
28:36
not what we're doing here, Like I'm not in the business of scarying kids,
28:41
Like why would you? But I gave dude, I'm gonna be honest,
28:45
like I gave him a stern talking to I looked that man in the
28:48
eye and I was like, no, we're not doing that. That is
28:52
one thousand percent inappropriate, Like no, and we kind of left it at
28:56
that. But yeah, and you're such a teddy bear, like you're you're
29:03
so gentle, and you're so calm and you're so chill. It's so funny
29:07
that they're like, we need the big, strong, scary football player to
29:11
scare them straight. I'm like, that's You're a football player and a good
29:15
one, but man, you're not the scary type. I was like,
29:18
what the hell did I tell? Like, why did you think that was
29:22
gonna happen anyway? Whatever? Uh yeah, next question. I touched on
29:26
it a little bit, but we can still ask it. Why do we
29:30
think setting boundaries is so important? It is very important because kids do really
29:34
well with structure and boundaries. If parents are really consistent and parenting is all
29:41
about consistency, then kids know what to expect. Kids don't fight things as
29:45
much if you're really consistent on things. So, like to give an example,
29:51
if you're a parent that caves, where if a child learns that,
29:53
oh, if I get mad, if I start yelling and screaming, I
29:56
can get what I want. That reinforces that behavior. They're like, ooh,
30:00
I'm gonna keep on doing that because it's worked. It got me what
30:03
I want. So sometimes you have to ride out the tantrums. You have
30:07
to stick to your guns. You have to set those boundaries, and that
30:11
can be really important for shaping that behavior. But it's hard. Oh my
30:15
god, it's so hard, and I'm learning more and more now that I
30:17
have a young, rambunctious baby that just even setting basic boundaries can be difficult.
30:22
We try to help coach parents up on like, you know, we
30:26
got to have if we're gonna have boundaries at school, we gotta have boundaries
30:29
and rules at home too, And like it's hard when the only place they're
30:32
getting certain boundaries is at school. It's hard when school staff and administrators have
30:38
to be the one to like set the boundaries and it's just not being held.
30:44
It's it's it's basically it's almost the same as if you have two parents,
30:47
one sets the boundaries, the other one knows caves. Yeah, you're
30:51
just not gonna follow them. You know you're gonna keep doing whatever because you
30:52
know in the end you're not really gonna have any repercussions. So m h
30:56
you talked about it a little bit, But now I can ask you're learning
31:02
now with Liam being a parent, do what are some things that you want
31:07
to have as a parent or do as a parent. This is something I've
31:11
spent my entire life thinking about. I've always wanted to be a parent,
31:15
and I really most of all want a happy, healthy kid, very very
31:23
vague, very generic. I want to teach him about life, give him
31:27
a curiosity about life, get him into things that he enjoys doing, show
31:33
him that the world can be a very good place, that there's a lot
31:37
of money to be made in chaos, and the world tries to show you
31:41
that things are all bad, But if you actually spend time with the people
31:45
around you and get to know the people around you, you learn that there's
31:48
a lot of good in this world. There's a lot of love in this
31:51
world. So I'm hoping that I can show him that that love is a
31:56
good thing. It's the most important thing in the world that there can be.
32:00
Thing with other humans is the most important thing that we can do as
32:02
humans. And to just use that to be happy and healthy. Hell yeah,
32:07
in any random year, if I ever get to do like a what
32:14
is it, like a keynote speaker, like a graduation, that the one
32:19
thing I would want to tell whatever age students is like the idea of love
32:24
and loving those around you. And even if the only amount of love that
32:28
you have to give is to yourself, then that's still okay to Yeah,
32:32
I like that. That's a good point. And then any extra thoughts on
32:37
spank and Eddie. I should have put a little more space in between spanking
32:45
and Eddie of no comma, Nope, thoughts on spanking Eddie possibly, yes,
32:53
No, we've talked about it. There's an of research now, spanking
33:01
not that great, let's not do that. I'll tell the story again.
33:07
This was a good learning moment for me. I'm in grad school. The
33:10
topic gets brought up of spanking and people were like, would you spank your
33:16
kids? And it was me and the only other guy of color in there,
33:22
and we both raised our hand and everyone else looked around and looked at
33:25
us, and I was like, oh, damn, I think I have
33:28
some stuff to learn here. Just because I got spanked doesn't mean it's the
33:32
best thing to do. So I will leave it at that, and I
33:36
will let you give us the scientific information. The studies and the data on
33:39
spanking show that it's not actually a very effective way of parenting. It doesn't
33:44
really change a lot of behavior, and it also has been shown to have
33:49
a lot of negative childhood outcomes similar to like physical abuse. So not the
33:54
best tool in your toolbox for parenting strategies. Conceptually, we oftentimes think of
34:01
spanking as teaching kids that it's okay to express violence in a relationship when you're
34:07
mad at someone or disappointed in someone, And yeah, it could potentially increase
34:13
people's chances of domestic violence and enter partner violence later in life because they're like,
34:19
oh, you made me mad, that gave me the right to get
34:22
to get physical, to get physically aggressive with you too. So another reason
34:24
to try and ask yourself, like, is this really something that I want
34:29
to do with my children? I'm going to hit a take home point of
34:34
just because you see it on the internet doesn't mean it's the only way and
34:37
that it's the right way. BAM. My take home point for today is
34:45
millennial dads change diapers and that's pretty cool. Hell yeah. On Apple Podcasts,
34:54
Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts, you can find this and any
34:59
of our episodes on Apple Podcasts. Feel free to leave us a five star
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35:08
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35:22
Thank you all so much, and until next time, take care of y'all. Mentals