Latest / All About The Joy / Backpack Heist, Forgotten Manners, Gen X Survival and the Modern Parenting Crisis
Transcript
- 0:00Carmen Lezeth: Hey everyone, welcome to All About the Joy.
- 0:02Carmen Lezeth: This is Carmen Lisette, your host.
- 0:04Carmen Lezeth: We get right into the conversation.
- 0:06Carmen Lezeth: So let me tell you who is in the house.
- 0:09Carmen Lezeth: It is Cynthia Lopez, it is Rick Costa, it is Mario Dawson and his better half, alma Dawson.
- 0:18Carmen Lezeth: Welcome to the Private Lounge so just to recap um, in the green room we were having a conversation because Cynthia's had a really bad mother effing week, um, and a really bad day.
- 0:36Carmen Lezeth: Um, she was continuing the story and so I started off the show with us just continuing on.
- 0:40Carmen Lezeth: So we're gonna let her vent and then we're gonna be in happiness mode, we're gonna let it out, but basically, we do a little recap.
- 0:47Carmen Lezeth: You got money stolen from you today at your office.
- 0:50Carmen Lezeth: We're trying to figure out.
- 0:52Carmen Lezeth: We I'm all in the investigation now.
- 0:54Carmen Lezeth: Uh, the cops are involved in her office.
- 0:57Carmen Lezeth: Somebody came in and was in the hallway.
- 0:59Carmen Lezeth: That seemed somebody that might be a courier or a messenger or something, so no one thought anything of it.
- 1:05Carmen Lezeth: But now they're realizing that this person might be an oddity, but they stole stuff out of her wallet.
- 1:12Carmen Lezeth: It was a big to do I know.
- 1:14Carmen Lezeth: Okay, cynthia, I'm sorry, I just want to give them a recap.
- 1:18Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Yeah, that's pretty much that.
- 1:20Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: That was just today.
- 1:20Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: That was today, monday.
- 1:23Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Of course they started with the layoffs um, I'm okay, my job's okay, thankfully, um, but a couple of my co-workers will let go, and it was just the way that they did.
- 1:34Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: It was just really kind of messed up, I think.
- 1:36Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: How did they do it?
- 1:37Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: So they didn't even wait till like the end of the day or like even tell them before they came in.
- 1:43Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: No, they waited till like everybody was in their offices, everyone was there, and it was like 1030, 11 o'clock was like they pulled this person into the office and like 10, 15 minutes later, the person comes back into the office crying and she's like today's my last day, like in front of of, in front of other people, and it's just like okay, this is not the way you do things, like you just embarrassing this poor person who's been there for 36 years too oh yeah is this the person that you don't like, though?
- 2:24Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: not that I don't like her.
- 2:25Carmen Lezeth: she's was the older person that we were.
- 2:27Carmen Lezeth: Okay, but still it's the way they did it.
- 2:29Carmen Lezeth: But it wasn't just her.
- 2:30Carmen Lezeth: You said there were massive layoffs right At the hospital.
- 2:32Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, absolutely.
- 2:34Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: And in our department there were three, in my sister's department there were 20.
- 2:41Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Oh yeah, yeah, all on the same day day, and it was just bad.
- 2:47Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Yeah and yeah, and it's just been crazy.
- 2:53Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: And I've been doing some work, so much work.
- 2:55Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I'm doing the work of like three or four people right now.
- 2:59Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: So, and then for this to happen today and it's not even friday the 13th, it's thursday the 13th, like, and this happened today I'm like I am, I'm, I'm just really sorry.
- 3:13Carmen Lezeth: I just I don't.
- 3:14Carmen Lezeth: Even I was gonna cancel today because she responded in the email, you know, when I sent out the link or whatever, and I was thinking about canceling, and then I was, but she said she wants to talk about it on the show and I'm like.
- 3:26Carmen Lezeth: So I was a little confused.
- 3:28Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I just needed to vent a little, but I needed some joy.
- 3:30Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I need some good stuff to happen, you know.
- 3:37Carmen Lezeth: I'd get up and tap dance for you, but I don't think that'll work.
- 3:40Maurio Dawson: Go for it.
- 3:52Carmen Lezeth: Well, so they're doing an investigation.
- 3:53Carmen Lezeth: They think they might know who it might be.
- 3:54Carmen Lezeth: It might be the gentleman that they everyone thought was a messenger or whatever, um, and that person might have ties to someone else in the office yes, I mean, it definitely seemed like it was kind of a a person who knew exactly where to go.
- 4:07Carmen Lezeth: Well, that's what I would say, okay, cause you know what.
- 4:09Carmen Lezeth: They went into her backpack and they only took cash.
- 4:12Carmen Lezeth: Now, I'm sorry, I grew up in the hood.
- 4:14Carmen Lezeth: We wouldn't just risk all that for cash.
- 4:17Carmen Lezeth: I would have taken your credit cards, I would have taken some other stuff, whatever little things you had on.
- 4:33Carmen Lezeth: Then you have a lot of disney stuff on your desk, huh, yeah, yeah, like I just uh, it was just the cash, yeah, so they just it's just a weird thing.
- 4:36Alma Dawsom: So I mean, either way, it sucks.
- 4:37Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I'm so sorry, rick, how are you doing like targeted, like they knew, like you said, they knew where to go, they knew and it's not like, like I don't really talk to that many people in my, in my department anyways, and you know what I mean.
- 4:48Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: It's like I have a mickey mouse everybody I know right, I have like a mickey mouse backpack.
- 4:55Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: You know what I'm saying.
- 4:55Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Like I look like a school kid when I walk in the office, so that's why I think nobody knew.
- 5:01Carmen Lezeth: that's why I'm like they just took cash first of all.
- 5:04Carmen Lezeth: That's why I was being so mean to you in the green room.
- 5:06Carmen Lezeth: I mean, I wasn't really, but I was like why do you have a thousand dollars of cash?
- 5:10Carmen Lezeth: No, who carries a thousand dollars of cash?
- 5:13Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I'm just saying that's why I was like nobody would know that that you're carrying cash.
- 5:18Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: That's the thing.
- 5:18Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: No one knows that I carry cash.
- 5:20Maurio Dawson: Everyone knows now.
- 5:26Carmen Lezeth: Well, we cash because everyone knows now what we know now.
- 5:27Carmen Lezeth: So, yeah, you need to invest in zell and venmo.
- 5:28Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Seriously, all of you?
- 5:28Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Yeah, no, I usually do, and that's the thing.
- 5:29Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: And it's like I happen to have cash.
- 5:32Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: This time, because I usually only use my card I happen to have cash um on me because, um, someone I had lent money to had just paid me back and I was going to deposit it because they didn't have zell, whatever.
- 5:45Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: And I was going to deposit it because they didn't have Zelle or whatever.
- 5:47Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: And I was going to deposit it right after work, thinking, you know, I'm in the office, I'm in a secure place, you know no one comes and bothers me, but nowhere safe apparently Tell the truth.
- 5:56Maurio Dawson: You know you're a gamer.
- 5:57Maurio Dawson: Go to strip club.
- 5:58Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Yeah, officer.
- 6:03Carmen Lezeth: It was all singles.
- 6:04Carmen Lezeth: I don't know they paid me back in singles.
- 6:13Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: It's not even the fact that they stole the money, it's just a security thing.
- 6:16Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: You know what?
- 6:17Alma Dawsom: I mean Like you don't feel safe, exactly.
- 6:20Maurio Dawson: Yeah.
- 6:21Alma Dawsom: Exactly that I was going to say.
- 6:23Alma Dawsom: It's that part of it.
- 6:24Alma Dawsom: They violated your space, really your safe space.
- 6:30Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Where I sit.
- 6:31Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: It's like you literally, when you come in the office, you literally have to go around another desk to even find my desk.
- 6:38Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: That's why I feel like somebody knew something.
- 6:43Maurio Dawson: Or saw something.
- 6:44Maurio Dawson: Right yeah, and you guys don't have cameras in the offices.
- 6:47Carmen Lezeth: Oh no, the Boston police are in the building when you walk in.
- 6:50Carmen Lezeth: Oh yeah, Exactly.
- 6:53Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I don't know what that means.
- 6:54Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: They were very bold.
- 6:56Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: And where my desk is literally the doctor's office is right next to me.
- 7:01Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: His door is always open, so it's like this person had some serious balls, because you don't know if he's sitting in there.
- 7:08Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: There's another office next and the door is closed.
- 7:11Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: You don't know if anybody's behind that door.
- 7:13Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: You're taking a chance.
- 7:14Carmen Lezeth: I think the person does.
- 7:14Carmen Lezeth: They've cased the place.
- 7:16Carmen Lezeth: We're like, do do do They've been there before.
- 7:20Carmen Lezeth: They know something, because that don't make no sense.
- 7:22Carmen Lezeth: Why would you go to a.
- 7:24Carmen Lezeth: Mickey Mouse book bag.
- 7:25Carmen Lezeth: Right, you can think about that.
- 7:29Maurio Dawson: Well, you know what I got robbed in Boston, so I'm sorry.
- 7:35Maurio Dawson: I feel like I got robbed in.
- 7:39Carmen Lezeth: Boston.
- 7:39Maurio Dawson: In the mall.
- 7:40Carmen Lezeth: In the mall All of a sudden.
- 7:43Maurio Dawson: It's Boston, it's all Boston.
- 7:45Carmen Lezeth: Sorry, come on LA.
- 7:46Carmen Lezeth: Go ahead ahead, rick.
- 7:48Carmen Lezeth: What were you gonna say I?
- 7:49Rick Costa: was joking, I was gonna say I was waiting for that.
- 7:51Rick Costa: My house was broken into.
- 7:58Rick Costa: Um, this was years ago.
- 8:01Rick Costa: Mom was still lucid, she had dementia and I I wasn't home and she wasn't home.
- 8:07Rick Costa: She was visiting my dad in a nursing home.
- 8:09Rick Costa: I was bringing my son back to his mom's house like 45 minutes away, and I had just dropped him off.
- 8:17Rick Costa: And then I'm getting a call from my mom and a good portion of that road there's no reception.
- 8:23Rick Costa: And she called me right before the reception cut off and all I got was we just got robbed.
- 8:30Rick Costa: We just got robbed and I was like what, ma, ma, ma, reception going.
- 8:36Rick Costa: I hit the gas, I didn't care, cops, nothing, because I'm thinking she was in the house, right, I didn't know what to think, so I jet and she was in the house.
- 8:44Rick Costa: Right, they're going to do something to her.
- 8:45Rick Costa: I didn't know what to think so, I jet.
- 8:48Rick Costa: And then she was like oh no, I was with your dad.
- 8:49Rick Costa: I was like you could have told me that.
- 8:52Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: But, you got the cops right behind you.
- 8:56Alma Dawsom: Yeah.
- 8:56Rick Costa: But what they did was they took a rock and smashed a window and then just reached in and unlocked the door and we even have a dog he did nothing.
- 9:06Carmen Lezeth: He's so friendly.
- 9:06Carmen Lezeth: So much pressure on the puppies.
- 9:07Carmen Lezeth: I'm just telling you they're not all gargoyles.
- 9:09Carmen Lezeth: You did nothing.
- 9:12Carmen Lezeth: You did nothing little Pepe.
- 9:18Rick Costa: The worst part was she had put in a locked box not jewelry cash, no, her passport, her American citizenship papers all like legal documents and of course there's going to be some money there's, yeah.
- 9:34Rick Costa: Now we have.
- 9:35Rick Costa: We have none of that.
- 9:36Rick Costa: I called to find out how much was.
- 9:39Rick Costa: Before you get a passport you got to prove your American citizenship for her or whatever.
- 9:43Rick Costa: And I said how much does it cost?
- 9:47Rick Costa: Because obviously it's going to cost something with the government.
- 9:49Rick Costa: So I said how much does it cost to get a copy of that?
- 9:51Rick Costa: She said, oh, it'll be about $600.
- 9:54Rick Costa: I said, excuse me, whoa.
- 9:57Carmen Lezeth: Wait, wait, wait.
- 9:58Carmen Lezeth: $600 for what For a passport?
- 9:59Carmen Lezeth: That's not right.
- 10:00Alma Dawsom: No no, no, it's a naturalization document.
- 10:03Rick Costa: A naturalization document.
- 10:04Carmen Lezeth: Oh yeah, that I can't help you with.
- 10:05Rick Costa: So I said hold on.
- 10:07Rick Costa: You're telling me a piece of paper not made out of gold costs $600?
- 10:13Rick Costa: .
- 10:13Rick Costa: I made it repeat it five times so I couldn't believe it.
- 10:15Rick Costa: I was like $600 for a piece of paper.
- 10:18Rick Costa: So yeah, we still have it.
- 10:19Carmen Lezeth: Is that because it's from Portugal?
- 10:22Carmen Lezeth: Is it because you have to go to Portugal to get it?
- 10:24Rick Costa: Well, I mean she's an American citizen, right.
- 10:27Rick Costa: Really, she did all that process.
- 10:29Rick Costa: My dad did too, but they stole that.
- 10:31Rick Costa: So to renew the passport, that's one of the things she needs, because she wasn't born here and so no passport, no, nothing, so yeah.
- 10:46Alma Dawsom: But we ain't going nowhere anyway so we don't care anymore, but at the time it was like mom, why did you do that?
- 10:49Alma Dawsom: When you become an American citizen, they give you a certificate, like with your picture, your naturalization number, all of that.
- 10:56Alma Dawsom: So then you need that certificate in order to get your passport.
- 10:59Alma Dawsom: So then that's what you were trying to replace.
- 11:01Alma Dawsom: Was that actual certificate $600.
- 11:02Alma Dawsom: That's what you were trying to replace.
- 11:03Alma Dawsom: Was that actual certificate $600.
- 11:08Rick Costa: That's insane.
- 11:10Carmen Lezeth: That's a lot of money.
- 11:12Rick Costa: I was having a heart attack, driving in the car thinking you don't, I didn't care about stolen, I didn't care about my mom.
- 11:19Rick Costa: Did they do something?
- 11:20Maurio Dawson: That's it.
- 11:21Maurio Dawson: Like they say, things can be replaced, people can't.
- 11:28Carmen Lezeth: Well, clearly not for $600.
- 11:30Carmen Lezeth: I'm just saying it's a lot of money.
- 11:32Carmen Lezeth: I mean they can be replaced, but it's like $600.
- 11:36Carmen Lezeth: That's a lot of money.
- 11:38Rick Costa: It's a huge violation and it takes a while to get over that, to be honest with you, really tough.
- 11:46Maurio Dawson: But you're going to be alright.
- 11:49Maurio Dawson: Juan's going to walk you to work every day.
- 11:51Maurio Dawson: He's going to sit by you.
- 11:52Maurio Dawson: He's going to look over your shoulder, look at she laughing.
- 11:58Carmen Lezeth: He ain't going nowhere.
- 11:59Rick Costa: Carmen wins the lottery and none of us can't work my money no more.
- 12:02Maurio Dawson: Right, carmen wins the lottery and gives Rick a day off.
- 12:05Carmen Lezeth: It's going to be, great, I said half a day, let's keep going Half a day.
- 12:13Maurio Dawson: Damn, you got twice and a half Rick.
- 12:16Rick Costa: Day.
- 12:18Rick Costa: It's going to work somewhere.
- 12:19Rick Costa: Talk about it.
- 12:19Rick Costa: I got to shut up.
- 12:24Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, you know, I don't have an have an experience I mean, knock on wood right now of anything being stolen from me.
- 12:30Carmen Lezeth: Um, you know, but we've all been violated in very different ways and, like it, it is your personal space and your safety that becomes the thing to get used to again.
- 12:42Carmen Lezeth: Um, you don't feel safe, you know, and it doesn't matter what you do to protect yourself, right, because sometimes you can't see it coming you know, but you will get there again.
- 12:56Carmen Lezeth: Oh, no, no, no, you will.
- 12:57Carmen Lezeth: I mean you will, especially because you're going to and I hate to say it this way because it sounds like I'm blaming the victim and I'm not but what are we never going to do again?
- 13:06Carmen Lezeth: We already know one of the things we're never going to do again is have a thousand dollars in our backpack, like you're never going to do that again, I promise you.
- 13:14Maurio Dawson: you know what I mean.
- 13:15Maurio Dawson: Can you sell me?
- 13:17Carmen Lezeth: and if people can't sell you like, okay, I'm not going to keep harping on the money thing, but that's one of the things you.
- 13:23Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean Like things that I don't do anymore is I do not walk anywhere by myself at night.
- 13:29Carmen Lezeth: It just doesn't matter.
- 13:30Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean Like.
- 13:32Carmen Lezeth: I do not Like.
- 13:33Carmen Lezeth: I used to do that as a kid all the time.
- 13:35Carmen Lezeth: I would walk from Forbes Street to Rosemary Street one o'clock in the morning and have no care in the world, not a care in the world, not a caring what what two, what is?
- 13:47Carmen Lezeth: it two miles, two and a half miles.
- 13:49Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, I would walk as a kid and then I learned a very valuable lesson never to do that again.
- 13:53Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean.
- 13:54Carmen Lezeth: And and from that to in what?
- 13:55Carmen Lezeth: Was I 14 when all that happened?
- 13:58Carmen Lezeth: Um, I, when it's night time out, I don't care if I'm at a party, if I'm, like at a guest house or whatever somebody's home and whatever, and we're having a party and I have to walk to my car, I will ask someone to walk me to my car, and I don't care if it's across the street.
- 14:11Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean.
- 14:11Carmen Lezeth: And again, that whole bougie.
- 14:14Carmen Lezeth: God, I'm so bougie.
- 14:15Carmen Lezeth: It's just right there, thank you, thank you, I'm bougie.
- 14:19Carmen Lezeth: I need to be walked to my car, thank you, I mean I was raised that that's a gentlemanly thing to do anyway.
- 14:27Carmen Lezeth: You started with.
- 14:28Carmen Lezeth: I was raised you know what I mean Like um, but that kind of segues into kind of the differences from being raised Gen X to how children are being raised today.
- 14:42Carmen Lezeth: Not to get into the whole parenting thing, but just the whole Gen X thing.
- 14:45Carmen Lezeth: There are just things we did as kids that you don't do today.
- 14:50Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean, and I heard somebody the other day get upset because somebody held the door open for her.
- 14:56Carmen Lezeth: She turned around.
- 14:57Carmen Lezeth: She's like you don't need to hold the door and I was like one of the guys at work held the door open for a woman and she was upset about it and I had to pull her over.
- 15:07Carmen Lezeth: She was a potential client, which I hope they don't take her on as a client whatever, but she wasn't a client for me because that would have been done.
- 15:15Carmen Lezeth: My boss was meeting her and she was incensed that a man would think that she'd want the door open for her.
- 15:24Carmen Lezeth: It was interesting and it's a different generation.
- 15:31Carmen Lezeth: I think that's weird, but it's also just different ideas of what like she thought of.
- 15:34Carmen Lezeth: Like she was I don't know weak or I don't even know what she was thinking like.
- 15:38Carmen Lezeth: Why would you get upset about that?
- 15:41Maurio Dawson: I can't explain that one.
- 15:42Maurio Dawson: I have no.
- 15:43Maurio Dawson: I have no words for that, because it's just, it's a.
- 15:45Maurio Dawson: It's an words for that because it's just an act of kindness.
- 15:50Carmen Lezeth: And it's manners, it's just good manners, you know what.
- 15:54Maurio Dawson: I'm sorry, these young people, they really in general do not have manners period.
- 16:00Carmen Lezeth: Do you guys believe that?
- 16:02Carmen Lezeth: Yes?
- 16:03Maurio Dawson: I mean because even with our daughter, we have taught her manners, so she is not the norm.
- 16:12Maurio Dawson: Let's just say it like that.
- 16:13Maurio Dawson: She's the exception, not the norm.
- 16:16Maurio Dawson: You know, please, and thank you, go a long way and a lot of these kids forget to say it now, or may I?
- 16:23Maurio Dawson: Or excuse me, excuse me.
- 16:26Alma Dawsom: That part.
- 16:28Carmen Lezeth: I can't tell you how?
- 16:29Carmen Lezeth: Many times people just like walk in front of me or like rub my shoulder, like not rub, push my shoulder.
- 16:35Carmen Lezeth: I'll say it, Excuse me.
- 16:40Alma Dawsom: At the happiest place on Earth.
- 16:42Alma Dawsom: I will stand right there and people are coming and I will stand and look at them.
- 16:46Alma Dawsom: Then they finally catch a clue and they'll go around.
- 16:52Alma Dawsom: I'm not loving it.
- 16:55Carmen Lezeth: You're talking about Disney?
- 16:57Carmen Lezeth: Isn't that like the capital?
- 16:58Maurio Dawson: of the continent.
- 16:59Maurio Dawson: People are rude.
- 17:00Maurio Dawson: People are people everywhere.
- 17:02Alma Dawsom: Oh yeah.
- 17:04Maurio Dawson: Do you think people are?
- 17:05Carmen Lezeth: more rude now than they were back in the day.
- 17:07Maurio Dawson: No, no, people are rude.
- 17:09Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: That's about the same.
- 17:12Maurio Dawson: No, that part I won't.
- 17:13Maurio Dawson: It's still the same.
- 17:15Maurio Dawson: A-holes are A-holes.
- 17:17Alma Dawsom: It's a different.
- 17:18Alma Dawsom: I'll say it's a different kind of rude they're so rude.
- 17:24Carmen Lezeth: People are rude.
- 17:24Carmen Lezeth: Someone're so rude.
- 17:25Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, I think people are rude.
- 17:26Carmen Lezeth: People will call someone called me out the other day because I used the wrong pronoun.
- 17:31Carmen Lezeth: I think I told you guys this before.
- 17:32Carmen Lezeth: Oh yeah, I used the wrong pronoun and they were like incensed by it.
- 17:36Carmen Lezeth: Like incensed.
- 17:39Carmen Lezeth: I was like I was like I apologize, I did not know that they go by they them.
- 17:42Carmen Lezeth: You know, I apologize.
- 17:42Carmen Lezeth: I did not know that they go by they them.
- 17:44Carmen Lezeth: I kept saying he, I didn't know, how am I supposed to know.
- 17:48Carmen Lezeth: I don't know how I'm supposed to know, but I guess you're not supposed to assume.
- 17:52Carmen Lezeth: Oh my God.
- 17:54Rick Costa: I don't know.
- 17:55Rick Costa: I was going to ask Alma, because you work with kids.
- 17:59Rick Costa: You see how they act, do you think?
- 18:02Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Look at her face.
- 18:04Rick Costa: Manny's all decreased.
- 18:04Rick Costa: Yes, most definitely how they act.
- 18:05Rick Costa: Look at her face, manners are decreased?
- 18:08Alma Dawsom: Yes, most definitely.
- 18:09Alma Dawsom: But see, if you come into my space, you're going to have manners or you will not get served, basically, so you walk in.
- 18:17Alma Dawsom: It's a good morning, it's hello, it's please, it's thank you, and we start that the minute they walk through the door.
- 18:25Alma Dawsom: Not all of this, you know.
- 18:27Alma Dawsom: Oh, can I have nope, and I'll stand there and they'll, and they finally oh, good morning, oh, good morning today you know, it's just one of those where it's like no, no, you know so no definitely.
- 18:43Alma Dawsom: And then you know, definitely ran into some you know parental figures who are like they don't have to speak, they don't have to, and I'm like well.
- 18:55Carmen Lezeth: I'm sorry, People without children.
- 18:58Maurio Dawson: I don't know what that means?
- 19:00Carmen Lezeth: What do you mean?
- 19:00Carmen Lezeth: They don't have to speak.
- 19:01Carmen Lezeth: Who don't have to speak?
- 19:03Alma Dawsom: They don't have to greet.
- 19:04Maurio Dawson: The child does not.
- 19:06Alma Dawsom: They don't have to greet anyone, they don't have to say To who?
- 19:10Alma Dawsom: To anyone?
- 19:12Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: So the parents are not teaching the kid manners, they're not teaching them to say good morning.
- 19:17Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, okay, wait, wait, wait.
- 19:18Carmen Lezeth: I need more information.
- 19:22Alma Dawsom: So parents come into the school.
- 19:24Alma Dawsom: The parent comes into the school to meet with you, yes, and to say, oh, I, I, um.
- 19:30Alma Dawsom: My kid came and said that you made them say hello, yes, I did, I did okay, no are you being funny?
- 19:41Carmen Lezeth: no, I'm not being.
- 19:42Carmen Lezeth: No, I'm not being funny?
- 19:43Alma Dawsom: No, I'm not being funny.
- 19:44Alma Dawsom: Yes, I did.
- 19:46Alma Dawsom: No, not you.
- 19:49Carmen Lezeth: I know you did.
- 19:50Carmen Lezeth: I'm saying the parents came in to tell you that the child said that you made them say good morning and hello and that was a problem.
- 20:00Alma Dawsom: Yes, oh hell to the no.
- 20:02Alma Dawsom: There's no way.
- 20:04Alma Dawsom: Yes, oh, hell to the no, there's no way.
- 20:11Carmen Lezeth: These are the types of things that we're dealing with in the school setting now.
- 20:15Carmen Lezeth: Yes, those types of things.
- 20:16Carmen Lezeth: I am shooketh.
- 20:16Carmen Lezeth: I swear to God, I am shooketh.
- 20:18Alma Dawsom: It's because it's kids having kids.
- 20:21Maurio Dawson: That part.
- 20:22Alma Dawsom: Yes.
- 20:23Maurio Dawson: And so you are still.
- 20:24Maurio Dawson: We have millennials now having kids who are Gen Zers, who are now teaching the millennials not their entitlement, which is now passing down to these children.
- 20:35Alma Dawsom: Yeah, they have no social skills and they're teaching their children.
- 20:39Maurio Dawson: No social skills.
- 20:41Carmen Lezeth: Wow, the respect for elders to me was just not even.
- 20:46Carmen Lezeth: I don't even remember learning it.
- 20:48Carmen Lezeth: It's like you were born knowing you better respect your elders and you will say good morning and ma'am and sir, and well, I don't think we said, and I'm gonna say this um, it's very for me, for me, for me.
- 21:03Alma Dawsom: We said Doña, but what I'm saying is that it's very, very cultural For me.
- 21:12Alma Dawsom: A lot of those lines are very cultural and I can tell when it's, let's say, latino families who are born here or Latino families who are immigrants.
- 21:30Carmen Lezeth: So let me guess the ones who are immigrants are all okay and their children are well-mannered.
- 21:37Alma Dawsom: And they still respect the authority of the teacher.
- 21:39Alma Dawsom: If the teacher says I'm going to call your mom, oh, those kids are like besides themselves, like no sorry, yes.
- 21:46Alma Dawsom: And the generations like myself who were born here and now have there, that that level of respect, that level of you know is not, is no longer.
- 22:01Carmen Lezeth: It's very American to be.
- 22:02Carmen Lezeth: I don't know what it is and you know I'm not a parent, it's just what I see.
- 22:07Carmen Lezeth: This thing about being friends with your children seems to be a very common American thing.
- 22:14Carmen Lezeth: Like it don't matter what age they are.
- 22:16Carmen Lezeth: Like we're going to negotiate and we're going to have a conversation about why you stole that piece of candy when I told you you couldn't have it.
- 22:28Alma Dawsom: And I'm like no, back in.
- 22:30Alma Dawsom: And you're gonna go and you're gonna tell them I'm so sorry, I took this and you're, you know it's like no, I'm not gonna let you take it with you.
- 22:39Alma Dawsom: No, we're gonna go back in.
- 22:40Alma Dawsom: We're not having a conversation.
- 22:41Alma Dawsom: I told you'll be fine, you cannot have this and you're gonna march yourself back and you're gonna go put it back.
- 22:49Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Do you ever get the ones that are like I'm sorry I took this, but can I still have it?
- 22:54Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: No, You're not sorry, are you?
- 23:03Carmen Lezeth: I don't get that whole thing.
- 23:04Carmen Lezeth: I don't remember.
- 23:05Carmen Lezeth: I know you guys are going to laugh, but I really was a very quiet kind of shy kid, except when it came to performing.
- 23:10Carmen Lezeth: I know you guys are going to laugh, but I really was a very quiet kind of shy kid, except when it came to performing.
- 23:13Carmen Lezeth: I just you know what I mean.
- 23:14Carmen Lezeth: I know, I know it's incredible, it's true, I was lovely.
- 23:22Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I know you were.
- 23:25Carmen Lezeth: No no, it's true, I was a pretty quiet kid because I was always out of sorts, right, I was always out of place.
- 23:31Carmen Lezeth: I was always um.
- 23:33Carmen Lezeth: This is after my mother died, but even before I mean I was really young, even before I was just, you know, I was a good kid, but I don't ever.
- 23:42Carmen Lezeth: I was afraid of adults.
- 23:44Carmen Lezeth: I was afraid of getting either hit or dismissed or pushed away or whatever Cause.
- 23:49Carmen Lezeth: You always wanted your, your parents and your elders to be proud of you, to think well of you to.
- 23:55Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean.
- 23:56Carmen Lezeth: So, but now I feel like kids have a weird resentment towards their parents.
- 24:02Carmen Lezeth: I don't know if resentment's the right word, but, like some, it's weird.
- 24:05Carmen Lezeth: It's just a weird dynamic.
- 24:08Alma Dawsom: I think that I understand what you're saying, but I think that you know how they say you go to extremes.
- 24:16Alma Dawsom: I think that we've taught this, this younger generation, to love themselves and that only their opinion matters and only what they think of themselves matters.
- 24:25Alma Dawsom: And so then you know, and they've invalidated that external need for validation.
- 24:33Alma Dawsom: I'll say it, but it really so.
- 24:35Alma Dawsom: I understand that part of it.
- 24:38Alma Dawsom: You're not going to base your value on external validation, but it's not.
- 24:42Alma Dawsom: But it's like the respect went out the window along.
- 24:47Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: It's like it becomes.
- 24:48Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: It has now become an entitlement.
- 24:49Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Exactly, exactly.
- 24:52Rick Costa: I saw a really funny video of and I'm sure every culture probably has their version of it, but it was American versus Portuguese parents, and so the father coming into the kid's room, American first.
- 25:03Rick Costa: Hey honey, dinner's ready.
- 25:05Rick Costa: Come on, let's go eat.
- 25:07Rick Costa: We're going to go eat now.
- 25:08Rick Costa: I made your favorite spaghetti and meatballs.
- 25:10Rick Costa: Oh, you don't like spaghetti and meatballs.
- 25:16Rick Costa: Oh, I'm sorry, what do you want?
- 25:17Rick Costa: What do you want?
- 25:17Rick Costa: Um, oh, you want chinese.
- 25:18Rick Costa: Sure, I'll order around, no, problem.
- 25:19Rick Costa: Then it switches to portuguese.
- 25:20Rick Costa: Hey, stop playing that stupid game.
- 25:22Rick Costa: Come on, we're gonna eat what you mean, what we're gonna eat, no matter what you want, if you don't want to eat it, then you ain't gonna eat nothing.
- 25:26Maurio Dawson: Come on, let's go, that's right that's that, that's cultural too, because that's us too.
- 25:32Maurio Dawson: But I was telling when you guys were talking I was thinking about my mother would always say she could tell the difference between a city child and a Southern child and how they were raised and their manners.
- 25:48Maurio Dawson: And you would always.
- 25:50Maurio Dawson: My mother says she can always look at someone and say, oh, their parents are from the South.
- 25:55Maurio Dawson: I said how do you know that, Because that mom will put them in check right there on the spot and they say yes, ma'am, and no ma'am, and they say please and thank you, and they get up and open the door or they'll get up and do something.
- 26:08Maurio Dawson: My mother says it all the time, but even culturally.
- 26:11Maurio Dawson: She said, but I said, mom, they're from Chicago.
- 26:17Maurio Dawson: Yeah, but I bet you their mama was from Arkansas.
- 26:19Carmen Lezeth: See, I've heard it differently.
- 26:21Carmen Lezeth: I've heard you can always tell a rich kid or a poor kid, right, poor kids are always well-mannered.
- 26:30Carmen Lezeth: At least back in the day, when we were growing up, you know what I mean, like poor kids always had good manners when they were outside of their own area, especially messing around, we didn't have nothing.
- 26:38Carmen Lezeth: And I mean I remember we had to wear a uniform to go to school and we and I only had one white shirt and one uniform jumper.
- 26:46Carmen Lezeth: Remember Cynthia?
- 26:47Carmen Lezeth: Oh my God, yeah, it's those ugly things, ugly, ugly cat school girl, plaid crap things or whatever, and we would have to wash it and then the more it'd still be wet and my mother would make us iron it so you could kind of get it dry, it, to dry it out, and it'd still be kind of
- 27:04Carmen Lezeth: damp but it'd have that nice little crease in the white right there.
- 27:08Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean.
- 27:09Carmen Lezeth: It was chilly but it was clean and you were proper, you know, and that's yeah.
- 27:16Carmen Lezeth: So it's kind of the same thing, the whole south thing on and city kid, but it's also, uh, poor kids, at least where I was going up, we had manners.
- 27:23Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, you would get the chunk man, you would get it upside the head like well, now I need you to go in the sit out or what do they call it.
- 27:33Carmen Lezeth: Go sit in the time out, time out, I know, but my friends would be like I was on a time out, a time out.
- 27:40Carmen Lezeth: I would have been grateful for a motherfucking time out.
- 27:43Carmen Lezeth: Are you kidding me.
- 27:45Carmen Lezeth: I had to go to my room and read, okay go to your room.
- 27:49Rick Costa: Thank you, I would have been so.
- 27:51Carmen Lezeth: I used to love when my friends are like Okay, thank you.
- 27:53Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I would have been.
- 27:54Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I used to love when my friends are like oh sorry, I can't go out, I'm grounded.
- 27:58Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I was like what does grounded mean?
- 27:59Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I didn't know what grounded was.
- 28:02Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: If you did something bad, you were getting spanked, or like getting something taken away.
- 28:06Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I got both.
- 28:08Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: You have both yeah.
- 28:10Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I got both.
- 28:15Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, I never got hit.
- 28:16Carmen Lezeth: I only only got hit once.
- 28:16Carmen Lezeth: It wasn't about my mother, but, um, but my mother would do that.
- 28:18Carmen Lezeth: Look, and that's what I'm saying a disappointment, but like the fierce like.
- 28:24Carmen Lezeth: And you knew you were in trouble, you know, you knew you did something bad and your whole shoulders would just like this you'd be, be like you would just feel horrible and there was none of this stuff.
- 28:35Carmen Lezeth: Like a day later Cause I remember watching the Huxtables right, the Cosby show being like I wish it was like that what I said a day later, please no, no, I'm just saying do you remember like watching the cosby show and like they would get mad at the kids or whatever, and then they would go and have a conversation of what they did wrong and did you learn your list and blah, blah.
- 29:01Carmen Lezeth: That'd be like I wish it was like that.
- 29:03Carmen Lezeth: No, it'd be like a day later, you still be in trouble.
- 29:05Carmen Lezeth: A day later, you still feel like shit.
- 29:07Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean.
- 29:08Carmen Lezeth: A day later, and you, your mom would never come.
- 29:11Carmen Lezeth: My mother would never come up and give me a hug and be like it's okay, baby, I understand Never that never happened.
- 29:18Alma Dawsom: So I will say that I was a combination of both.
- 29:24Alma Dawsom: I definitely got, I definitely got her.
- 29:29Alma Dawsom: I mean, she'll tell you herself, I got her.
- 29:31Alma Dawsom: I mean she'll tell you herself, I got her we got her who.
- 29:34Alma Dawsom: Our daughter.
- 29:36Alma Dawsom: She definitely got spanked, Definitely got spanked.
- 29:40Alma Dawsom: I think the favorite thing that we ever did was one time she wanted that DS, you know that handheld Nintendo.
- 29:48Alma Dawsom: Oh, she wanted it bad for her birthday, she wanted it.
- 29:50Alma Dawsom: Oh, my birthday, she wanted it, oh, my goodness.
- 29:53Alma Dawsom: So we did it.
- 29:54Alma Dawsom: We got it.
- 29:55Alma Dawsom: We got it for her.
- 29:56Alma Dawsom: No, we got it for Christmas.
- 29:57Rick Costa: It was Christmas time.
- 29:57Rick Costa: It was supposed to be Christmas.
- 29:58Rick Costa: We got it for.
- 29:59Maurio Dawson: Christmas.
- 30:02Alma Dawsom: And it was three stories.
- 30:04Alma Dawsom: So it was the landing.
- 30:05Alma Dawsom: She would slide down the stairs.
- 30:07Alma Dawsom: And we told her you need to stop because you're going to hurt yourself.
- 30:11Alma Dawsom: You need to stop because you're going to hurt yourself.
- 30:13Alma Dawsom: So then one time she slid and she went head first and hit the wall.
- 30:18Alma Dawsom: I mean like she hit the wall.
- 30:22Maurio Dawson: And put a dent in the wall.
- 30:23Alma Dawsom: And oh, I lost it.
- 30:26Alma Dawsom: Of course she was hurt.
- 30:27Alma Dawsom: I hurt her some more.
- 30:28Alma Dawsom: She was, she was.
- 30:32Alma Dawsom: We had to take her to the doctor.
- 30:34Alma Dawsom: You know the whole nine of them.
- 30:35Alma Dawsom: This was maybe a week before Christmas.
- 30:39Alma Dawsom: So then Christmas came and she opened up her gift and it was the DS right the box.
- 30:46Alma Dawsom: But inside was a note from Santa that said oh, I heard that you weren't behaving well and that you hurt yourself on the wall, so we're going to see how you're doing by your birthday and you might get your gift then.
- 31:00Alma Dawsom: Oh, sure.
- 31:01Rick Costa: Her birthday is in May oh that's awesome.
- 31:08Alma Dawsom: So then she was I mean, she lost it, of course crying, and then we sat down and we said well, do you know why that happened?
- 31:16Alma Dawsom: Yes, you know, and she was able to explain why it happened earlier, though you didn't wait till May, did you?
- 31:23Alma Dawsom: No, yes, we did we wanted on her birthday we are cold bloody with it and that's the thing you have to follow through.
- 31:33Alma Dawsom: You can do a different style of parenting, whatever, but the thing is you have to follow through and not give in.
- 31:44Alma Dawsom: They understand, yes, why they got in trouble.
- 31:46Alma Dawsom: But you don't wait a day, you get them on the spot so they understand.
- 31:49Alma Dawsom: Oh, what I just did was not okay.
- 31:51Alma Dawsom: Then you explain to them why it wasn't okay.
- 31:52Alma Dawsom: But you don't wait a day, you get them on the spot so they understand.
- 31:53Alma Dawsom: Oh, what I just did was not okay.
- 31:53Alma Dawsom: And then you explain to them why it wasn't okay.
- 31:54Alma Dawsom: But you don't just oh, oh, no, I know.
- 32:00Carmen Lezeth: I was talking back to their parents in the grocery store of all ages.
- 32:05Carmen Lezeth: I'm shook by that too.
- 32:07Carmen Lezeth: Like kids that talk back, I'm like.
- 32:10Alma Dawsom: And you know I'm the one, oh, you, let you let your child talk to you like that.
- 32:17Rick Costa: I can imagine your daughter saying what did you get for Christmas?
- 32:21Rick Costa: I got this bump on my head, exactly, exactly.
- 32:26Alma Dawsom: But see unlike us.
- 32:30Maurio Dawson: My mother would torture me, I would get in trouble.
- 32:33Maurio Dawson: She's like, okay, I'm going to get you.
- 32:35Maurio Dawson: And so she would make me wait like days, and like I'm sitting there looking over my shoulder.
- 32:42Maurio Dawson: And so then, what she used to do, she would wait until I fell asleep and I would snatch the covers off and whoop my tie up in my sleep, so I had nowhere to go.
- 32:53Maurio Dawson: So then, okay, that's mean no, I know what's going on.
- 32:58Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: My mom did that to me too.
- 33:01Maurio Dawson: See, I'm not the only one.
- 33:02Alma Dawsom: But, you got to wait and hear what he did.
- 33:05Maurio Dawson: This one right here.
- 33:06Maurio Dawson: I got in trouble.
- 33:07Maurio Dawson: I knew it was coming.
- 33:09Maurio Dawson: I was like, okay, I can't live like this.
- 33:12Maurio Dawson: So every night I just started stacking books in my clothes.
- 33:16Maurio Dawson: I put books like the soft books, the little foldable books.
- 33:24Maurio Dawson: I would put them in my clothes, in my pants, in my pajamas, and I would cover up.
- 33:29Maurio Dawson: And so one night I knew it was coming.
- 33:31Maurio Dawson: She snatched the covers off and she's whooping my tail and I would cover up.
- 33:31Maurio Dawson: And so one night I knew it was coming.
- 33:32Maurio Dawson: She snatched the covers off and she's whooping my tail and I'm not moving.
- 33:36Maurio Dawson: So she's like what, get up man, get up boy.
- 33:42Maurio Dawson: And so she sees me all bulked up, take off your clothes, look at her falling out of my clothes.
- 33:57Maurio Dawson: She walked out of the room and she had to laugh she still laughs to this day because I just I couldn't, I couldn't take my mother would.
- 34:06Maurio Dawson: She played mind games with me.
- 34:08Alma Dawsom: She would just like that's hard, that's's hard she was.
- 34:11Alma Dawsom: But she was a single mom raising a young man.
- 34:15Carmen Lezeth: No, no, no, I get it.
- 34:17Carmen Lezeth: Look, I'm not a parent.
- 34:18Carmen Lezeth: I am not judging nobody.
- 34:21Carmen Lezeth: I am not a parent, I am not judging.
- 34:23Rick Costa: I'm just saying that's hard.
- 34:25Rick Costa: I applaud your ingenuity.
- 34:26Rick Costa: Thank you, thank you.
- 34:29Carmen Lezeth: It was good.
- 34:29Carmen Lezeth: How old were you then?
- 34:31Maurio Dawson: Eight, and then I got in trouble the next year at nine, because I can't say everything I said, but I cussed out a teacher at nine and so you know, at a Christian school it happened, but no, it was bad.
- 34:51Maurio Dawson: It's too blue for the show and so I cannot so.
- 34:58Maurio Dawson: I had to put you in the green room because I can't stay with you.
- 35:01Maurio Dawson: And so not only did I get in trouble there, that was when they used to swat you with paddles, because it was private school, so I got swatted with a paddle.
- 35:12Maurio Dawson: Then I got home and my mother got me again.
- 35:17Maurio Dawson: And then it was on my ninth birthday, by the way, and I had gotten a 10-speed bike for my birthday which I had to sit.
- 35:26Maurio Dawson: She set it by the front door and made me look at it every day for a month.
- 35:33Maurio Dawson: My mother was cold, she was cold-blooded.
- 35:35Maurio Dawson: She would make me look at it for a month and she said you better not move.
- 35:41Maurio Dawson: I mean that tire, better not move.
- 35:42Maurio Dawson: She marked it like the-.
- 35:44Carmen Lezeth: She marked it, that's for real.
- 35:46Maurio Dawson: I knew that was coming, she marked it and it did not move If I touched it, if I sneezed on it, she knew.
- 35:53Maurio Dawson: So she was like my mother was just.
- 35:58Maurio Dawson: She was a genius with her punishment because I never forgot them and I never forgot the lesson behind it, whereas these parents don't do that now.
- 36:09Maurio Dawson: They're like, oh, sitting in the timeout.
- 36:11Maurio Dawson: Did you learn your lesson?
- 36:12Maurio Dawson: What was the lesson?
- 36:14Carmen Lezeth: Hey, listen, I'm not advocating any, I am not a parent.
- 36:18Carmen Lezeth: I don't want to get no DMs.
- 36:20Carmen Lezeth: I don't want to get no emails You're advocating hitting.
- 36:22Carmen Lezeth: I'm not advocating nothing.
- 36:24Maurio Dawson: No, I'm not saying that now.
- 36:26Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, no, no, no, no.
- 36:27Carmen Lezeth: We're just talking about back in the day how it was, and just the differences that happened.
- 36:31Carmen Lezeth: Today, I think there needs to be a happy medium.
- 36:35Carmen Lezeth: I think the biggest problem I see as an outsider and I am valid in being able to say this, because I do have children in my life, so I can say this part is I don't know where that line happened, where people thought it was more important to have your kids like you than to parent them, and I think there is a big confusion with that.
- 36:56Carmen Lezeth: Like I know, when you're older, your kids become your friends or whatever, because they respect you and they're adults or whatever.
- 37:03Carmen Lezeth: But that whole, beginning from like birth to like 21 or something, needs to be you being an adult, and that has always been my problem Always.
- 37:17Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: No, what I was going to say was that my mom did that to me when I was probably about eight or nine.
- 37:22Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I had lied and said that I was at the afterschool program and I was really at my friend's house who her house was literally right behind the school program.
- 37:31Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: And I was really at my friend's house, who her house was literally right behind the school.
- 37:32Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: She found out.
- 37:33Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: It happened to be the one day that she called the school to ask for me to tell me that she was gonna be home late from work or something, and I was not there and somehow found out that I was at my friend's house, called my friend's house.
- 37:48Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: She answered, asked if I was there, she puts me on the phone, and she said you better get home now and I will see you when I get home.
- 37:57Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I flew out that house, ran home, got settled like if I was in bed asleep.
- 38:06Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Oh no, that did not.
- 38:07Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: That didn't work either.
- 38:08Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: She knew I was not asleep.
- 38:11Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: She took the covers off and beat my ass.
- 38:16Alma Dawsom: I came in on the good part.
- 38:19Carmen Lezeth: I'll beat her ass.
- 38:20Carmen Lezeth: That's right.
- 38:21Carmen Lezeth: I remember your mother, so I I 100% true.
- 38:27Carmen Lezeth: I totally believe all of that.
- 38:29Carmen Lezeth: May she rest in peace.
- 38:32Carmen Lezeth: She was hardcore, though, because she used to beat you guys with the cord and shit.
- 38:39Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: The extension cord yeah, my sisters used to get that and I got the brush.
- 38:44Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I used to get the brush and the chocolate.
- 38:46Maurio Dawson: Corporate punishment is not cool.
- 38:49Maurio Dawson: I just want to say that.
- 38:52Carmen Lezeth: It's not, but it's a different Cultural, different time and you know, we all turned out great, we're fine.
- 39:01Carmen Lezeth: I mean, I Never got hit, but I think there's the emotional abuse part of Things that I think is kind of what I've always said this like physical Pain is not really the problem.
- 39:11Carmen Lezeth: It, I think, is kind of what which I've always said this like physical pain is not really the problem.
- 39:13Carmen Lezeth: It's the emotional kind of psychology part of it that I think messes you up even more.
- 39:20Carmen Lezeth: But it's also good, because you need to know rules, you know you need to understand things.
- 39:25Carmen Lezeth: I mean and I get it I've never hit a child in my life, nor would I, because they're not my kids or whatever.
- 39:30Carmen Lezeth: But I'm not against people parenting.
- 39:33Carmen Lezeth: I'm against people parenting badly, which seems to be the norm and not the exception nowadays.
- 39:40Carmen Lezeth: So, um, and I mean even kids that I work with, and I say kids cause they're you know, they're Gen Z, um, I think are.
- 39:48Carmen Lezeth: There's some parts of them that I love I'm just trying to get my water one minute.
- 39:55Carmen Lezeth: There's one part of them that I love, um, because there's so much about them Like they grew up with technology, they're not afraid of stuff, they're very like they have this independence, they know, like they want to work smarter, not harder, and I kind of love that whole idea of you know cause.
- 40:10Carmen Lezeth: We're like we'll work seven days a week, whatever we need for our little stupid check every week, and they're not like that.
- 40:15Carmen Lezeth: They're like I'm getting paid from nine to five, that's all I'm working and I will do my job.
- 40:20Carmen Lezeth: And I love that, you know.
- 40:21Carmen Lezeth: But there's that other part of it where I just see how they lack just things like discipline and structure and manners.
- 40:31Carmen Lezeth: And you know, like it's not always about you and you don't learn that unless it's always been about you, right?
- 40:38Carmen Lezeth: If it's always about you and your household, because you were the little kid, then that's how you're going to behave in the workplace and then get upset when no one gives a shit about what you're saying because it's about a team.
- 40:50Carmen Lezeth: You know.
- 40:50Carmen Lezeth: No one gives a shit about what you're saying because it's about a team, you know.
- 40:54Carmen Lezeth: So I see how it reflects back on the workspace.
- 40:55Carmen Lezeth: You know, and I have a couple of people like they won't do things.
- 40:59Carmen Lezeth: I'll tell them you need to do these four things or whatever, and they'll be like all right, well, I'll get to it.
- 41:07Carmen Lezeth: I'm like yeah, no, no, no, no, no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm the boss, right, and you need to do this.
- 41:13Carmen Lezeth: And if you don't do it, this is going to be another reason why when I fire your ass oh, carmen, you're so dramatic Like even saying that I know they will say that they will say God, okay, I'll do it now.
- 41:30Carmen Lezeth: Like these, I'm not kidding, it is, and this is the norm in the workspace.
- 41:32Carmen Lezeth: That's why I can tell it's bad parenting, and I'm not just blame, you know, it's the environment.
- 41:36Carmen Lezeth: It's a different thing.
- 41:37Carmen Lezeth: Like also not winning, like, okay, I'll give you an example.
- 41:40Carmen Lezeth: Like we'll give an award, not an award, but we'll give people, like a bonus and say you did such a great job, thank you so much for working on that project.
- 41:48Carmen Lezeth: We want to give you, you know, a thousand dollars.
- 41:51Carmen Lezeth: Whatever it is, you know it depends you know a little percentage of what the job profit was, and it's not all the time, but it's when somebody does something exceptional, whatever the moping, that happens because other people didn't get it.
- 42:03Carmen Lezeth: Instead of finding happiness for that person, the moping, or doing like a self-analysis like oh man, next time I'm going to try to do.
- 42:15Maurio Dawson: You know what I mean?
- 42:15Maurio Dawson: Yeah, the lack of incentive.
- 42:17Maurio Dawson: Yes, it's the lack of incentive, the fact that he's saying you know what Dang they got it?
- 42:24Maurio Dawson: What did they do that?
- 42:25Maurio Dawson: I'm not doing the self reflection, there's none of that anymore.
- 42:29Maurio Dawson: And the lack of accountability of taking responsibility for your ill-preparedness or your lack of incentiveness.
- 42:43Carmen Lezeth: It's just no, that's true and and and and.
- 42:47Carmen Lezeth: It's a fierce jealousy which I mean we've all been jealous, right, we've all had but the, the fierce jealousy, as opposed to it being about incentive or self-analysis or whatever it is yeah, that part for sure, for sure.
- 43:01Carmen Lezeth: So, wow, I didn't know we were gonna have a whole show about parenting.
- 43:04Carmen Lezeth: I love this for us.
- 43:06Carmen Lezeth: I was not on the agenda at all.
- 43:11Carmen Lezeth: How was your parenting, rick?
- 43:14Carmen Lezeth: I mean, you're a dad, you're a doctor?
- 43:17Rick Costa: Oh, for my son, you mean?
- 43:20Rick Costa: I thought you meant me and my dad, because y'all already heard that.
- 43:24Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, nothing about you.
- 43:25Carmen Lezeth: Your son is a doctor, he's a doctor.
- 43:30Rick Costa: From birth I put the fear of God in him, so he became like me.
- 43:33Rick Costa: All I got to do is just give you a look and you're shaking.
- 43:36Carmen Lezeth: already I can't even imagine you being that parent.
- 43:39Carmen Lezeth: But I believe you Right?
- 43:40Carmen Lezeth: I don't know.
- 43:40Carmen Lezeth: I'm not real in all my.
- 43:42Carmen Lezeth: Totally see it.
- 43:43Carmen Lezeth: Cynthia and Rick, you guys are nice people.
- 43:46Maurio Dawson: I don't know Rick you guys are nice people.
- 43:48Maurio Dawson: I don't know.
- 43:48Maurio Dawson: I know you're mean.
- 43:52Carmen Lezeth: What you saying, you saying I'm not nice.
- 43:54Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: You can even ask my nieces.
- 43:56Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: They were like, oh no, cynthia's strict and they know.
- 43:59Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: They already know not to lie to me, because they already know, I find out.
- 44:04Carmen Lezeth: I forgot that you have a facade going on because everyone thinks you're the sweet, nice person on the show.
- 44:09Carmen Lezeth: But we've seen your villainous, evil meanness.
- 44:13Carmen Lezeth: It's true, I know y'all think she's the sweet one and the kind one.
- 44:18Carmen Lezeth: She's not.
- 44:19Carmen Lezeth: She's not.
- 44:20Carmen Lezeth: I'm the sweet and kind one.
- 44:21Carmen Lezeth: Y'all think I'm the mean one.
- 44:22Carmen Lezeth: That's the weird thing, ain't it true?
- 44:25Carmen Lezeth: It's so true, I'm the kind one.
- 44:33Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: You're ain't it.
- 44:33Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: True, it's so true, I'm the kind one.
- 44:34Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: It is, it's so weird.
- 44:35Carmen Lezeth: It is, it's true.
- 44:35Carmen Lezeth: I'll admit to that.
- 44:35Carmen Lezeth: It is true.
- 44:36Carmen Lezeth: But, rick, go ahead.
- 44:37Carmen Lezeth: What did you do to make your son be so fabulous and become a doctor?
- 44:41Rick Costa: if I said something, I said it once.
- 44:43Rick Costa: Now we'll do this and that's it.
- 44:47Rick Costa: If you didn't do it, you pay the consequences.
- 44:49Rick Costa: You know, I'm gonna tell you again.
- 44:54Rick Costa: I'm gonna tell you no, no, no one time, and that's it what were the consequences waterboarding, whatever he enjoys, he ain't doing it.
- 45:03Maurio Dawson: I'm so kidding for the listeners, I'm so kidding.
- 45:08Rick Costa: We don't believe in corporate whatever he enjoys doing, he ain't doing that now that's it, that's all, and how's your relationship with your son now good, even with that level of discipline?
- 45:25Rick Costa: Always, always was good.
- 45:27Rick Costa: Just, I mean teenage years.
- 45:28Rick Costa: You know it was a little rough because every excuse not to see me not almost sick, I got too much homework.
- 45:36Rick Costa: Mind you, I'm driving 45 minutes to go see him.
- 45:40Alma Dawsom: Every excuse in the book, but then you know things change teenager yeah, now okay well, I want to touch back on something that you said before about you know people feeling like, because that person got something, they have to get it too.
- 45:54Alma Dawsom: It's that participation trophy mentality you know today For real, like, even though, yes, they have this work life balance thing down to a T, but they really don't.
- 46:11Alma Dawsom: They do lack initiative, they definitely, you know, lack organizational skills.
- 46:20Alma Dawsom: Oh for sure For real real and just the work ethic.
- 46:24Alma Dawsom: Ok, fine, you're only going to work nine to five, but in that nine to five, you need to show me what you can do.
- 46:30Alma Dawsom: I don't want to be hounding you and coming after you every minute.
- 46:34Alma Dawsom: Did you already do what I asked you?
- 46:35Alma Dawsom: Did you already?
- 46:36Alma Dawsom: Oh, guess what?
- 46:37Alma Dawsom: It's a write-up.
- 46:38Alma Dawsom: Now Let me go ahead.
- 46:39Alma Dawsom: I don't play.
- 46:39Alma Dawsom: I'm like, I just don't play.
- 46:41Alma Dawsom: Here's your, here's your email.
- 46:43Alma Dawsom: We're going to meet tomorrow at this time.
- 46:51Alma Dawsom: Here's the paper copy of everything.
- 46:52Alma Dawsom: Here's all this stuff.
- 46:52Alma Dawsom: And then you're going to go take this class because I need to know that you know how to do it.
- 46:55Alma Dawsom: And so then now give me an excuse and don't do it.
- 46:57Alma Dawsom: When I ask you to do it the first time, I just don't.
- 47:00Alma Dawsom: And it's like and when they find somebody like that, they're like oh yeah, oh, oh yeah.
- 47:10Alma Dawsom: I get that all the time time.
- 47:11Alma Dawsom: I feel like this is becoming toxic.
- 47:12Alma Dawsom: Well, they learned some big phrases growing up and I, and, and, and, literally, just like I use it with the parents, I will use it with you.
- 47:22Alma Dawsom: Know, co-workers, whoever you can look up the policy you, you can call here.
- 47:28Alma Dawsom: Here's the number to call.
- 47:29Alma Dawsom: Call this office and they will I think sometimes it's not even like I just find it's not even worth it anymore.
- 47:34Carmen Lezeth: Like I mean, I know what you're saying the people I work with, all of them, especially like I'm exhausted by the amount of complaining.
- 47:43Carmen Lezeth: Yes, like everything is so much work and I'm like you have no idea what it is to work hard.
- 47:53Carmen Lezeth: I'm sorry, like when I think of my mother being a housekeeper, or I'm thinking of like people now that work real jobs where they're sweating and they're manual work no labor, no right, real.
- 48:04Carmen Lezeth: No right, real, real labor.
- 48:07Carmen Lezeth: Like I'm like nothing I do will ever compare to that type of work.
- 48:12Carmen Lezeth: Nothing, nothing.
- 48:14Carmen Lezeth: When I first moved to California, I got a free room and board in Westwood from a gentleman, an older gentleman, his name was Mr Nasher, may he rest in peace but he was like in his seventies or eighties old.
- 48:28Carmen Lezeth: He was a frail guy and, um, he had, uh, someone who came in and cleaned his house on a like twice a week regularly, um, and he had a nurse who came and he played the piano.
- 48:39Carmen Lezeth: So he had an ad that said you know, free room and board, um for light housekeeping.
- 48:44Carmen Lezeth: So when I first moved here, I took that place and you have your room.
- 48:49Carmen Lezeth: I had to buy a mattress.
- 48:51Carmen Lezeth: You had to buy your own little furniture or whatever.
- 48:52Carmen Lezeth: It was a desk or something, so it wasn't much.
- 48:55Carmen Lezeth: And you did light housekeeping okay, light housekeeping.
- 48:58Carmen Lezeth: So he would make breakfast in the morning.
- 49:01Carmen Lezeth: You would have to clean up after him.
- 49:02Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean.
- 49:03Carmen Lezeth: There was a.
- 49:04Carmen Lezeth: There was a side bathroom, not his bathroom, but there was another side bathroom.
- 49:06Carmen Lezeth: You had to clean that bathroom.
- 49:06Carmen Lezeth: You had to sweep the kitchen.
- 49:07Carmen Lezeth: You had to clean that bathroom.
- 49:08Carmen Lezeth: You had to sweep the kitchen.
- 49:10Carmen Lezeth: You had to take care of the garden in the back.
- 49:12Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean, not the landscaping part, but, just like you know, make sure the bird feeder had feed in it or whatever, and pick up any of the leaves that may be until the gardener came, or whatever little stuff.
- 49:23Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean.
- 49:24Carmen Lezeth: I did that for eight months, crying my eyes out every night because it was so hard to do.
- 49:33Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean, but it was hard.
- 49:35Carmen Lezeth: I had just graduated from college and I was trying to find a job and I was doing like I was cleaning the little bathroom and cleaning the floors and in the kitchen and that's my whole point is like I knew how hard that work was and it wasn't even the full housekeeping shit, you know, because he was like carmen carmen, come over here like he'd be on the piano and he would have his whatever, his liquor or whatever, and his he can you come and clean up this stuff?
- 50:02Carmen Lezeth: And he'd have like peanuts or something and just the amount of work and getting the vacuum or whatever.
- 50:08Carmen Lezeth: And I know I'm making it like, but that's what I'm saying is like I will never know what real hard labor is.
- 50:13Carmen Lezeth: So when I hear these motherfuckers who have done not even that much and they can't do shit like filing, I have to tell you filing seems to be the thing gen z cannot do.
- 50:25Carmen Lezeth: I, I need you to file this.
- 50:27Carmen Lezeth: They're like what, what?
- 50:30Carmen Lezeth: I need you to file this stuff we need it done.
- 50:34Alma Dawsom: It's the next generation.
- 50:35Maurio Dawson: That part they cannot file.
- 50:38Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: And it's like they forgot their ABCs because it's like it's so hard for them.
- 50:43Alma Dawsom: Oh, my goodness, oh my God, yeah, it's a whole thing.
- 50:48Carmen Lezeth: I will never know or I'll always be respectful.
- 50:51Carmen Lezeth: I love anybody that.
- 50:53Carmen Lezeth: I love the people that work for my clients in their homes, like the housekeepers, the landscapers, whatever and also I always work on my spanish with them.
- 51:02Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean speaking in spanish, so I could, uh, work on my Spanish, but they are the most lovely people, they work the hardest, they make the least amount of money.
- 51:13Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean.
- 51:14Carmen Lezeth: They're so kind, they're such good people and they are treated like shit by everyone.
- 51:20Alma Dawsom: That's the one thing that I made sure that you know.
- 51:25Alma Dawsom: Our daughter knows her roots and where she came from.
- 51:28Alma Dawsom: My mother came to this country and that's how she made her living.
- 51:31Alma Dawsom: She made her living housekeeping.
- 51:33Alma Dawsom: I started going to work with my mother when I was 11 years old and she would put me on the bus to go to one of the houses.
- 51:42Alma Dawsom: She would start, another house, she would finish and then she would meet me and help me finish.
- 51:46Alma Dawsom: Like that.
- 51:47Alma Dawsom: Those were my summers.
- 51:48Alma Dawsom: I didn't know what summer camp was, I didn't know.
- 51:51Alma Dawsom: I mean, you get what I'm trying to say.
- 51:53Alma Dawsom: I was like I was like they do on tv.
- 52:00Alma Dawsom: I want to do that.
- 52:01Alma Dawsom: But I mean, I did exactly.
- 52:03Alma Dawsom: I mean, but you know, but that's why I made sure that she understood, but she got to do summer camp.
- 52:12Maurio Dawson: Yeah, you know what?
- 52:13Alma Dawsom: I'm saying that's so good, that's so good, yeah, but she also understood the hard work and the sacrifice that came with it.
- 52:21Alma Dawsom: So, anywhere that she's gone, I don't care where it is, she's gone, you know, to great places great places.
- 52:31Alma Dawsom: And I always tell her, wherever you go, the people that you want to know are the people who are working behind the house, the people who are working in the offices, In the restaurants.
- 52:42Alma Dawsom: Those are the people that you want to know Because, guess what?
- 52:45Alma Dawsom: They know some of everyone and everything.
- 52:48Alma Dawsom: They know who everyone is, they know where everyone is, they know where, they know all the secrets and they will be the ones who will help you.
- 52:56Alma Dawsom: I said nobody else is gonna.
- 52:58Alma Dawsom: I said you know and and and it's been very true for her.
- 53:03Maurio Dawson: Perfect example Once you moved to Switzerland, and the people who worked in the kitchen and in the service areas of the school those were her lifesavers.
- 53:18Alma Dawsom: Yeah, they were always going to look out for her.
- 53:21Maurio Dawson: And that's what really got her through.
- 53:23Carmen Lezeth: Oh my God, Wow.
- 53:25Carmen Lezeth: Well, that was a show I wasn't expecting, wow.
- 53:31Maurio Dawson: It was a gift I kept giving and you didn't know it.
- 53:34Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, no, I mean, I think I learned a lot.
- 53:36Carmen Lezeth: You know, we are the best generation.
- 53:39Carmen Lezeth: That's what I've learned.
- 53:40Carmen Lezeth: We were raised well though I agree.
- 53:44Carmen Lezeth: There were bad things about the way we were raised, though, too.
- 53:47Carmen Lezeth: Let's you know, we were all pretty much latchkey kids, I assume.
- 53:51Maurio Dawson: I was yes.
- 53:52Carmen Lezeth: Which you know, for those people who don't know what that means.
- 53:55Carmen Lezeth: You know, we didn't have a lot of supervision.
- 53:57Carmen Lezeth: We'd come home after school and it comes from having a key around your neck and you'd let yourself in and you'd make your own food and you'd do your homework and you'd play outside till the lights came on or whatever, and um you drink from a water hose isn't that funny that people think that's such a big deal.
- 54:16Carmen Lezeth: I'm like not at all but if you say it, they get like kids are.
- 54:21Carmen Lezeth: That was a big thing.
- 54:22Carmen Lezeth: On tiktok, you drink from a water hose?
- 54:25Carmen Lezeth: Yes, we drink from.
- 54:26Carmen Lezeth: That was our water fountain.
- 54:27Maurio Dawson: Yes, and we kept playing and kept going.
- 54:30Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Right.
- 54:31Maurio Dawson: We didn't have video games.
- 54:32Maurio Dawson: We had Atari back in the day.
- 54:34Maurio Dawson: Then we had Nintendo.
- 54:36Carmen Lezeth: Centipede I loved Centipede.
- 54:38Carmen Lezeth: No, we went to the arcade, the arcade.
- 54:41Alma Dawsom: Yeah, the corner store had the machines that you put on.
- 54:46Maurio Dawson: You go to the bodega or the liquor store that you put up.
- 54:48Maurio Dawson: You go to the bodega or the liquor store.
- 54:49Maurio Dawson: You stay there for four hours playing video games in the store and you knew everybody on your block and everybody take turns and you bring your stack of quarters and you stack up saying I'm next, I'm up next.
- 55:00Maurio Dawson: That was the stuff I remember.
- 55:02Carmen Lezeth: And then you would watch all the elders who you knew were all gang members, playing pool, playing pool, dr pool, and all the ladies of the evening who were so nurturing and loving to you.
- 55:19Carmen Lezeth: As a kid being in the pool hall, you remember right what was the name of that pool house right there, where high, low was what was it.
- 55:28Carmen Lezeth: We used to go play arcades.
- 55:30Carmen Lezeth: All the time it was a bowling alley and, yes, yes, it had our game and there were a bunch of like gangsters.
- 55:37Carmen Lezeth: I mean, they weren't, they were just older men and ladies call it what it was back in the day back in the 70s, that know what it was.
- 55:47Maurio Dawson: Back in the 70s they was calling pips in house.
- 55:50Maurio Dawson: I didn't know what it was.
- 55:52Carmen Lezeth: We didn't know what was behind those other doors, we didn't care, we were just hanging out man.
- 55:57Carmen Lezeth: But you know what?
- 55:58Carmen Lezeth: I really was so naive I think most of us were.
- 56:03Maurio Dawson: You were yeah.
- 56:04Carmen Lezeth: But you felt safe around all these people.
- 56:07Alma Dawsom: They didn't harm any of the children I mean not that I know of Because that was our village, that was you know, and I think that now these younger kids have access to so much information that we didn't.
- 56:21Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, that we did not.
- 56:22Carmen Lezeth: That's a good point too.
- 56:24Carmen Lezeth: Wait, Cynthia, what were you saying?
- 56:26Carmen Lezeth: That was our village.
- 56:27Carmen Lezeth: Right, that was our town, that was our village.
- 56:28Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Yeah too Wait.
- 56:29Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Cynthia what were you saying?
- 56:31Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: That was our village, right, that was our town.
- 56:34Carmen Lezeth: That was our village, yeah, and everyone knew everyone and everyone could discipline you.
- 56:36Carmen Lezeth: But I think that's part of the thing, though right Too right, the discipline too, but there was also that part of it too is that when anything did happen, that was bad or wrong or horrible to a child, because it did happen, and I think that's what ended up making this.
- 56:46Carmen Lezeth: We've gone, the pendulum has gone the other way, because there would be a child abducted or something horrible would happen and people got really afraid and scared or whatever.
- 56:56Carmen Lezeth: And then the pendulum went the other way, where there's all of these like we have to have what do you call them when you go and play dates?
- 57:01Carmen Lezeth: Oh my God.
- 57:03Carmen Lezeth: Like scheduling you know and I remember talking to Juliana one time and she said actually she was on the podcast, she scheduling, you know.
- 57:09Carmen Lezeth: And I remember talking to juliana one time and she said actually she was on the podcast.
- 57:11Carmen Lezeth: She said this, she said the whole idea that all she wishes it was like in the 80s when your parents didn't have to come with you to go hang out with your friends, because and I was like, what are you talking about?
- 57:20Carmen Lezeth: But because they have to schedule play dates, that means the parents have to get along and then they go and hang out with each other and then the kids have to play with the other kids you know we hated that.
- 57:31Maurio Dawson: What?
- 57:32Maurio Dawson: Yeah, you, but the parents wanted for us, like my best friends cory and chris.
- 57:37Maurio Dawson: Our mothers knew each other, but we didn't all.
- 57:41Maurio Dawson: They didn't all hang like we would.
- 57:43Maurio Dawson: Just, I want to go to cory's house, okay, is his mama going to be home?
- 57:47Maurio Dawson: I'm dropping you off and then I'll see you later that was it?
- 57:51Carmen Lezeth: It was like I understand what you're saying it was not a big thing.
- 57:54Carmen Lezeth: It wasn't a big thing.
- 57:55Carmen Lezeth: Well, I mean I never had the play date, the scheduled date, but yeah, I mean you did have to, but we would lie all the time.
- 58:02Carmen Lezeth: What no sleepovers.
- 58:05Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Oh nope, they can come stay at your house, but you couldn't stay at theirs.
- 58:08Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I was older.
- 58:14Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, I don't have that experience because I was staying at people's houses all the time, but that's because it was a different.
- 58:18Carmen Lezeth: I didn't have my parents, yeah, so you guys couldn't go stay over at people's houses.
- 58:26Maurio Dawson: They could come to your house, but you couldn't go to theirs.
- 58:28Maurio Dawson: My best friends came to my house, but I never went to.
- 58:32Maurio Dawson: No, I went to their house one time and then all hell broke loose.
- 58:36Carmen Lezeth: But that's another, that's a story for another day all right okay, well, now I'm all nostalgic and everything but um, wow, all right anyway, thank you everyone.
- 58:47Carmen Lezeth: It was great to hang out and remember.
- 58:49Carmen Lezeth: At the end of the day, it really is all about the joy, all about the joy.
- 58:57Carmen Lezeth: Thanks for stopping by.
- 58:58Carmen Lezeth: All About the Joy Be better and stay beautiful.
- 59:01Carmen Lezeth: Folks have a sweet day.