Latest / Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines / EP 21: I Love My Kids… But I Don’t Love Being a Parent

Transcript

EP 21: I Love My Kids… But I Don’t Love Being a Parent · Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines

0:06
Speaker 1: Welcome to Learn the hard Way. My name is Ki Gines.
0:09
Speaker 1: We talk about purpose, we talk about pressure, and we
0:12
Speaker 1: talk about what it actually takes become a full comprehensive man. Hey,
0:17
Speaker 1: what's up, y'all? Welcome back to another episode of Learning
0:21
Speaker 1: the Hardway podcast. I am your host, care Gaines. I
0:25
Speaker 1: am a therapist. I am a husband, I am a father.
0:29
Speaker 1: I am also a father. And I don't know if
0:32
Speaker 1: I ever said this on the pod before. You can
0:36
Speaker 1: stop me if you heard it, but I'm also a
0:39
Speaker 1: father and let me tell you something about fatherhood. Boy
0:46
Speaker 1: built too. You know, I'm trying to go lighter on
0:51
Speaker 1: the curse words bout the cheeks. Man, Just I am
0:54
Speaker 1: I am being taken to the woodshed and I am
0:57
Speaker 1: being spanked by fatherhood. It is crazy right now, and
1:03
Speaker 1: that's what I want to talk about on this episode.
1:07
Speaker 1: The parenthood is not something. Parenthood is something that we
1:10
Speaker 1: just recently becoming more comfortable being very socially honest about
1:16
Speaker 1: and not just honest about our approaches, but honest about
1:20
Speaker 1: our experiences in parenthood. It feels like ten years ago
1:23
Speaker 1: you weren't allowed to say you don't like being a parent.
1:28
Speaker 1: It would have been the worst thing in the world
1:30
Speaker 1: if you would have said that ten twenty thirty forty
1:33
Speaker 1: years ago. But now, uh huh, things have changed. I
1:40
Speaker 1: still still think that parents are one of the most
1:43
Speaker 1: dishonest groups when it comes to publicly talking about our experiences.
1:48
Speaker 1: I feel like parents are profoundly dishonest. But it's not
1:52
Speaker 1: for no reason, and we'll talk about that today. But
1:56
Speaker 1: the inspiration behind this entire podcast episode, the inspiration behind
2:01
Speaker 1: this entire message that I'm sending, is from a real
2:06
Speaker 1: that I recorded maybe about a year ago. And in
2:09
Speaker 1: that real I said something that I thought was pretty basic.
2:14
Speaker 1: I didn't find it remarkable, but man, that post went
2:17
Speaker 1: crazy viral and became the topic of a few blogs,
2:23
Speaker 1: became the topic of a few YouTube content series, like
2:29
Speaker 1: everybody was talking about this joint. Not everybody, but a
2:31
Speaker 1: lot of people. And in this post, I said, I
2:36
Speaker 1: love my children, I love my girls. I love my children,
2:40
Speaker 1: I love them so much, but I do not always
2:44
Speaker 1: love being a parent. And again, I love my children.
2:47
Speaker 1: You always got to qualify with that, I love my children,
2:50
Speaker 1: but parenthood is like you know how we all got
2:54
Speaker 1: that cousin You love them, but you don't really like them. Like, bro,
2:57
Speaker 1: if we weren't related, you and I would never be
3:00
Speaker 1: in the same place and have a conversation. That's my
3:02
Speaker 1: relationship with parent and I'm gonna keep it funky with y'all.
3:05
Speaker 1: I was being nice when I said I do not
3:08
Speaker 1: always love being a parent. I'm not gonna say I
3:10
Speaker 1: hate being a parent, but it's it's closer to hate
3:13
Speaker 1: than do not love a lot of times. And I man,
3:17
Speaker 1: that could be alarming because I'm always posting my kids
3:21
Speaker 1: on social media. I'm always posting things about parenthood. Last year,
3:25
Speaker 1: I want a parents dot com Parents magazine awarded me
3:29
Speaker 1: a next Gen Winner for leadership and parenthood, and in
3:33
Speaker 1: my accepted speech, I said that I don't like being
3:36
Speaker 1: a parent, and I keep expecting the world to be like,
3:39
Speaker 1: oh gasp, here, you can't you can't say that. How
3:43
Speaker 1: dare you? Oh dare you? Sir? I keep waiting for
3:46
Speaker 1: the world to do that to me, and it hasn't
3:48
Speaker 1: happened yet. I get more people saying, yeah, thank you
3:51
Speaker 1: for finally saying out loud what I felt deeply for
3:53
Speaker 1: a very long time. So that tells me that there's
3:56
Speaker 1: a conversation that needs to be had. There's a conversation
3:59
Speaker 1: bubbling up under the surface of this thing that we
4:02
Speaker 1: gotta bring to the top. And that's what I'm finna
4:05
Speaker 1: do today in this here episode. There is a broader
4:09
Speaker 1: discussion here just about identity. There is a way bigger
4:13
Speaker 1: discussion here about emotional complexity. I think that being a
4:19
Speaker 1: parent doesn't mean that you should have to be a
4:22
Speaker 1: stranger to yourself. I'll play the clip, but in the clip,
4:26
Speaker 1: I said, you know my kids. You can have all
4:28
Speaker 1: of my money. Fine, y'all entitled to that. You can
4:31
Speaker 1: have all of my money, you can have all of
4:32
Speaker 1: my time. Cool, you're entitled to that, but you are
4:35
Speaker 1: not entitled to all of my identity. I am more
4:39
Speaker 1: than just a father. But it's really complex because I
4:42
Speaker 1: think a lot of people who have a hard time
4:44
Speaker 1: separating loving your kids but not loving the duty of parenthood.
4:49
Speaker 1: To me, it makes perfect sense because they're not the
4:52
Speaker 1: same things. I'll give you an example because I think
4:55
Speaker 1: we just started a part and this is around the
4:57
Speaker 1: time where I'm I'm supposed to share a story with
5:01
Speaker 1: y'all that that it's a personal story about a moment
5:04
Speaker 1: where parenthood felt super super overwhelming to me and I
5:07
Speaker 1: needed some space for myself just exist as me, and
5:11
Speaker 1: I found myself craving that time and not getting it.
5:13
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to tell y'all a story about the time
5:15
Speaker 1: that that happened to me, but I can't do that.
5:19
Speaker 1: I can't tell you about a time when that happened.
5:22
Speaker 1: And that's because that happens all the time. I'm going
5:27
Speaker 1: I'm gonna need some grace on this episodecause I'm gonna
5:29
Speaker 1: be real honest about my relationship with parenthood. And I
5:32
Speaker 1: need you to listen, and you can judge, but just
5:36
Speaker 1: keep it to yourself. I don't need your judgment. I
5:40
Speaker 1: just need your ears and your openness and your curiosity.
5:44
Speaker 1: But it happened so much is every day of my life,
5:48
Speaker 1: and for me, it's contextual like I was. We all
5:50
Speaker 1: come into the understanding in different ways. So I was
5:54
Speaker 1: raised the only child, and I was raised the only child.
5:57
Speaker 1: You know, some people say, oh mom, Dad, I want
5:59
Speaker 1: to say, yo, I ain't never wanted a sibling before
6:02
Speaker 1: ever ever. I have them on my father's side, but
6:05
Speaker 1: I just got to know them in my May twenty,
6:07
Speaker 1: so it's different. As a kid, I never wanted a sibling.
6:10
Speaker 2: I love.
6:13
Speaker 1: You know. I can't tellue that I've ever felt lonely
6:16
Speaker 1: in my life. I love solitude. Solitude is my jam.
6:19
Speaker 1: Give me a quiet house with just me and I
6:20
Speaker 1: don't talk for four days. Man, don't threaten me, but
6:24
Speaker 1: a good time. Love that. I love quiet and I
6:29
Speaker 1: love stillness, and I hate being rushed, Like being rushed
6:33
Speaker 1: is a trigger for me. I'm always gonna get upset
6:34
Speaker 1: about that. Don't rush me, man, Those things make my
6:39
Speaker 1: brain feel good, and it just so happens that parenthood
6:42
Speaker 1: is fundamentally the antithesis of everything that makes my brain
6:47
Speaker 1: feel good, and it's been something that I've been trying
6:50
Speaker 1: to contend with. My wife says that I keep waiting
6:53
Speaker 1: for parenthood to feel better on my skin and it
6:58
Speaker 1: never does because it's unlikely that it ever will. And
7:04
Speaker 1: I don't want to accept that. Man, Nah, that ain't true.
7:06
Speaker 1: One day it's going to change for me, right, I
7:09
Speaker 1: don't think so. I think this is what it is,
7:12
Speaker 1: and I have to shift my focus from waiting for
7:16
Speaker 1: it to change to accepting that this is my reality.
7:21
Speaker 1: And if that's true for you, I think this episode
7:24
Speaker 1: is going to be a great help for you. If
7:26
Speaker 1: that's not true, for you. I think this episode's gonna
7:29
Speaker 1: give you a lot of context into the way maybe
7:31
Speaker 1: your spouse, or your co parent, or even your friends
7:34
Speaker 1: think that's very different from the way that you do.
7:38
Speaker 1: So today we're going to talk about a lot of things,
7:41
Speaker 1: but amongst those things, we're going to talk about how
7:45
Speaker 1: parents can fully embrace the idea of parenthood without allowing
7:49
Speaker 1: it to become the whole identity. And we also want
7:52
Speaker 1: to talk about how much easier life could be if
7:56
Speaker 1: we're honest about all the sides of being and parents,
8:00
Speaker 1: more specifically, if we're honest about all the sides that
8:04
Speaker 1: are included in being a father, because fatherhood is a
8:10
Speaker 1: subgenre of parenthood, but they're not necessarily they don't encompass
8:15
Speaker 1: the same things. Y'all ready to jump into this episode.
8:20
Speaker 1: That's a stupid question, of course, y'all are, Come on,
8:23
Speaker 1: let's grow. One of the biggest signs of emotional maturity
8:28
Speaker 1: that I can easily identify is when people can hold
8:32
Speaker 1: two complex but competing truths at the same time. These truths,
8:39
Speaker 1: if you say them both, it sounds like one has
8:42
Speaker 1: to disappear for the other one that exists, which I
8:46
Speaker 1: don't find to be true at all. I think two
8:48
Speaker 1: competing realities can live in the same building. Absolutely, you
8:52
Speaker 1: can feel both of those things at the same time,
8:55
Speaker 1: and you can sway between extremes. You could be further
8:57
Speaker 1: right on one side and you could be further left
9:00
Speaker 1: on the other side. Just some different issues. Shit, you
9:03
Speaker 1: could be further right or left on the same issues
9:06
Speaker 1: in different times of the day. You are allowed to
9:09
Speaker 1: change your mind and have very deep thoughts where the
9:13
Speaker 1: needle moves on them all the time. I think that's
9:15
Speaker 1: a part of being an intelligent and emotionally forward person.
9:19
Speaker 1: There's nothing wrong with that, but it does beg the
9:22
Speaker 1: question why do we have such a hard time admitting
9:25
Speaker 1: that parenthood can be both very beautiful and very difficult
9:30
Speaker 1: at the same time. And I got a few ideas
9:33
Speaker 1: as to why we struggle with that. When I talk
9:36
Speaker 1: to dads about parenthood, I find that dad's fall into
9:40
Speaker 1: three different categories. Typically, moms are different, moms are different.
9:45
Speaker 1: I'm gonna focus on dads now. Hopefully we can get
9:47
Speaker 1: the moms in another episode. But when I talk to dads,
9:50
Speaker 1: it's three three categories. One is the dad that's like man,
9:53
Speaker 1: parenthood is super easy. I was lost before I have
9:56
Speaker 1: my kids. My kids changed me. They help me understand
9:59
Speaker 1: who when I am better, I love this. This is
10:02
Speaker 1: my jam. Then there's another group of dads that will
10:07
Speaker 1: hit you with the man, parenthood sucks taking care of
10:10
Speaker 1: these kids because I love them the more importantly, they're
10:13
Speaker 1: my responsibility and this is just what I gotta do.
10:17
Speaker 1: I'll get through it, but it sucks. And then there's
10:20
Speaker 1: a third category of dads who are a little bit
10:23
Speaker 1: of both. They're the oh, man, my kids and my
10:25
Speaker 1: life dads until they read the room and figure out
10:28
Speaker 1: it's safe to be honest, and they're that man, parenthood
10:31
Speaker 1: sucks dads. These three categories of people kind of have
10:37
Speaker 1: all different experiences, and when they're in a mixed group,
10:39
Speaker 1: they don't necessarily agree with one another. And when you
10:43
Speaker 1: have a group of people that all are experiencing a
10:46
Speaker 1: similar thing but don't agree with one another, there's typically
10:49
Speaker 1: going to be conflict, there's going to be judgment, and
10:53
Speaker 1: that those two things are going to change the way
10:55
Speaker 1: that the conversations in shape when everybody's having them at
10:57
Speaker 1: the same time. And I think that's why it's uncomfortable
11:02
Speaker 1: saying it. Holding those two competing truths, because if you
11:06
Speaker 1: fly too close to parenthood being beautiful, well, people will
11:09
Speaker 1: think that you're not really highlighting how difficult it is.
11:12
Speaker 1: They think you're being disingenuous. And if you fly too
11:15
Speaker 1: close to the sung how difficult it is, people think
11:17
Speaker 1: that you're ungrateful for the amazing gift that it is
11:20
Speaker 1: to be able to be a parent. It's like, damn, man,
11:24
Speaker 1: I can't have tea and kool aid. You know, when
11:26
Speaker 1: you at the buffet and like, wold you like fish
11:28
Speaker 1: or chicken? And I say, yes, give me the salmon
11:31
Speaker 1: and the thigh. I don't understand why I gotta choose
11:34
Speaker 1: one or another. I can have both on my plate.
11:37
Speaker 1: The statement that I always say, I love my children,
11:41
Speaker 1: but I don't like being a parent. It makes people uncomfortable.
11:45
Speaker 1: And I got empathy for the fact I really do
11:47
Speaker 1: that it makes people uncomfortable, But that don't belong to me.
11:50
Speaker 1: That's still a reality that's mine. I'm not going to
11:53
Speaker 1: stop expressing it because it makes people uncomfortable. I think
11:56
Speaker 1: it's good that it makes people uncomfortable, but I get why.
12:02
Speaker 1: I get why it makes folks uncomfortable, and that's one
12:05
Speaker 1: of the reasons is because you're not supposed to dislike parents,
12:07
Speaker 1: and that's tapoo. You're not supposed to dislike a job
12:11
Speaker 1: that you signed up for, right, You're not supposed to
12:15
Speaker 1: be dissatisfied with a gift from God. Right, Parenthood is
12:19
Speaker 1: a gift. You're not supposed to dislike something that's your duty.
12:23
Speaker 1: It's it's a part of who you are now. It's unavoidable,
12:27
Speaker 1: and now more people than just yourself depend on you.
12:31
Speaker 1: So even if you are dissatisfied with it, you can
12:33
Speaker 1: only sit in that for so long before you have
12:36
Speaker 1: to continue doing the job. And I think that's why
12:40
Speaker 1: it makes people uncomfortable, because we're not supposed to have
12:42
Speaker 1: space to even explore or question our relationship with parenthood.
12:46
Speaker 1: It's a duty that we just fulfill unwaveringly. Right, Yeah,
12:51
Speaker 1: let me just let me just say something. I'm gonna
12:53
Speaker 1: have a few caveats in this episode. I did some
12:56
Speaker 1: work when I work for child protective services. Text the
13:00
Speaker 1: services in any state is the craziest thing that you
13:03
Speaker 1: ever see. People do horrible things to children, horrible unimaginable
13:08
Speaker 1: things to children. Not sometimes all the time. It'd be
13:12
Speaker 1: like thirty cases on the docket every day, every day
13:15
Speaker 1: for a year. It's insane how that works. So even
13:19
Speaker 1: though we're not telling the truth, we're not vocalizing it,
13:22
Speaker 1: the evidence is there and the data is there that
13:24
Speaker 1: people are struggling with the duty of parenthood. And we
13:27
Speaker 1: may express that struggle in different ways, but it exists,
13:31
Speaker 1: whether when honest about it or not, it exists. My
13:34
Speaker 1: mind can tell the difference between loving your children and
13:38
Speaker 1: loving every aspect of parenting, and I realize that not
13:41
Speaker 1: everybody can. And i'll i'll, I'll share the way I
13:46
Speaker 1: see it, and you all kind of tell me what
13:48
Speaker 1: you think. The way I see it is my children
13:51
Speaker 1: are just people. They're people that my wife and I created.
13:56
Speaker 1: That's it. They're not my legacy. They are my assignment
14:01
Speaker 1: to love, to nurture, and to care for for the
14:04
Speaker 1: rest of my life. They are just people, and they
14:08
Speaker 1: are people that I genuinely enjoy. I genuinely enjoyed them.
14:13
Speaker 1: I was just kissing my baby girl's cheeks before she
14:15
Speaker 1: went to camp this morning, and she had the softest
14:17
Speaker 1: little face. She's so cute. She asked the best question.
14:19
Speaker 1: She's amazing. Parenthood is the job. That's what I don't
14:25
Speaker 1: rock with parenthood is the job. It's the pickups, the
14:29
Speaker 1: job balls, the clean environment. In the middle of your meal, Daddy,
14:32
Speaker 1: can you come waite my butt. It's answering a million questions,
14:35
Speaker 1: just figuring out who's traveling where. It's oh, my god,
14:39
Speaker 1: if your kids do sports, its figuring out who's gonna
14:42
Speaker 1: take who where. And it's play dates and oh, you're
14:45
Speaker 1: on an iPad on FaceTime with your friend and making
14:47
Speaker 1: sure that y'all not talking about nothing crazy. It's going
14:49
Speaker 1: through your kids text messages to make sure things are appropriate,
14:53
Speaker 1: that they're being fed the right information, that you know
14:55
Speaker 1: what they know. I could go on. It's the schooling,
14:58
Speaker 1: it's the PTA conferences, it's all the different God dang,
15:02
Speaker 1: we got a meeting for cheerleading. We got a group
15:05
Speaker 1: for cheerleading, and we got a group for her cheerleading team,
15:07
Speaker 1: and the group for the whole gym, then a group
15:08
Speaker 1: for the school, and a group for the class, then
15:10
Speaker 1: a group for the special interest class, and everybody's emailing
15:13
Speaker 1: and everybody's texting. Then the parents got a group, and
15:15
Speaker 1: the parents got a subgroup with only parents. That good God,
15:19
Speaker 1: It's a million logistics. You gotta watch your tone and
15:22
Speaker 1: navigate the emotional challenges. It's so much. It's so much,
15:27
Speaker 1: and for a lot of us, our parents didn't really
15:29
Speaker 1: have to deal with all this, so they think we're
15:31
Speaker 1: overdoing it and overreacting. Say, man, you ain't even know
15:34
Speaker 1: where I was half the time, and my kid is
15:36
Speaker 1: exposed to Twitter, where you could see anything at the
15:40
Speaker 1: click of a button. We do not have the same
15:42
Speaker 1: parenthood experience. The best way that I could describe my
15:46
Speaker 1: relationship with parenthood is I hate my job, but I
15:50
Speaker 1: like my coworks because this is something that happens all day,
15:55
Speaker 1: and it's every day for days, and those days turn
15:58
Speaker 1: the weeks, and weeks turn the musclo most turn the years,
16:01
Speaker 1: and those years turn to decades. I meet people who
16:03
Speaker 1: are in their seventies and so frustrated with their kids,
16:07
Speaker 1: who are in their mid forties and almost fifties. In
16:10
Speaker 1: your seventies, you're still dealing with it. This personal hell
16:13
Speaker 1: doesn't end. A roller coaster is Greek because you get
16:16
Speaker 1: off of the ride eventually.
16:18
Speaker 2: I'm still on a roller coaster at seventy. Oh my goodness, man,
16:26
Speaker 2: it does not stop. It does not stop for anything
16:30
Speaker 2: or anybody, and you know it's.
16:33
Speaker 1: It's to me. It's about honesty. It's being honest about
16:36
Speaker 1: the experience instead of faking like you know what, hey man,
16:39
Speaker 1: you just gotta do it, gotta put your head down, hey,
16:41
Speaker 1: repairents is what we signed up for, right, No, why
16:43
Speaker 1: ain't signed up for this? What are you talking about?
16:47
Speaker 1: This is not what I thought would happen at all.
16:49
Speaker 1: And I got the right to be wrong, and I
16:50
Speaker 1: got the right to be sad that I'm wrong, But no,
16:53
Speaker 1: this is not what I signed up for exactly. That's
16:56
Speaker 1: another that just brings home the point that I was
16:59
Speaker 1: making early, because that's another point about being the dad
17:02
Speaker 1: and having emotional maturity. That means that you're holding these
17:06
Speaker 1: conflicting things at the same time. You're not diminishing one
17:09
Speaker 1: to highlight the other. You're allowing them to coexist. And
17:13
Speaker 1: that is something that takes a tremendous amount of practice
17:15
Speaker 1: and a tremendous amount of growth and maturity. You could
17:17
Speaker 1: be grateful for your child's love of sports and being
17:21
Speaker 1: active and athleticism cool, but you could also hate how
17:24
Speaker 1: grueling a travel soccer schedule is, because travel soccer is
17:28
Speaker 1: crazy work. From what I understand, it's like aau on steroids.
17:33
Speaker 1: You can love making your kids feel safe in your
17:36
Speaker 1: bed where they're comforted and they're warm and they's snuggled,
17:39
Speaker 1: and you can also hate how little sleep you get
17:42
Speaker 1: because you had a tiny elbow in your lower back
17:45
Speaker 1: all night because kids don't sleep up and down like
17:49
Speaker 1: the rest of us. They sleep parallel, diagonal, and then
17:53
Speaker 1: the worse worse positions possible. You can have both of
17:57
Speaker 1: these feelings exist at the same time as what I'm
17:59
Speaker 1: saying to you, and it's okay to acknowledge that actually
18:03
Speaker 1: gives you some great emotional dexterity in other parts of
18:05
Speaker 1: your life. So I feel that society, just man, society
18:10
Speaker 1: does a really good job at forcing parents into this
18:14
Speaker 1: all or nothing thinking. You know, it's like, if parenting
18:19
Speaker 1: is hard, then you must regret it. Nah, A, parenting
18:23
Speaker 1: is hard because it's difficult and there are a lot
18:25
Speaker 1: of touch points, and I don't always feel like doing
18:28
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean I regret. It just means that it's hard.
18:32
Speaker 1: That's the man. That's the if then faulty if then,
18:36
Speaker 1: And I'll get into that later in the episode. But
18:39
Speaker 1: you know, people will have this black and white thinking
18:41
Speaker 1: where they'll say, well, if you need time for yourself
18:44
Speaker 1: as a parent, then you're clearly selfish. Nah. I was
18:50
Speaker 1: existed on this earth for thirty years before I became
18:53
Speaker 1: a parent. How does doing something that I've always done
18:56
Speaker 1: to fill my cup now make me a selfish person.
19:00
Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything wrong with having selfish moments,
19:04
Speaker 1: but taking time for yourself that's not selfish, that's self protective.
19:10
Speaker 1: If you've been at it with your kids all day
19:13
Speaker 1: and you're frustrated and you don't take a moment for yourself,
19:15
Speaker 1: everybody is going to suffer. And sometimes the thing with
19:18
Speaker 1: parenthood is Kiki promises. The gag is you don't get
19:22
Speaker 1: moments for yourself, or if you take them, they're very
19:24
Speaker 1: short and they're not very restorative. It's funny how we
19:30
Speaker 1: frame parenthood and we frame what it means about you
19:33
Speaker 1: and your capabilities and your experience. That's why people don't
19:37
Speaker 1: say anything. That's why we're not honest, because no one
19:39
Speaker 1: wants to be judged around something that everybody experiences. Everybody
19:43
Speaker 1: experiences differently, but they're having a difficult time with Nobody
19:46
Speaker 1: wants to be judged for that. Hey, before we keep
19:56
Speaker 1: going real quick, I want to tell y'all something that
19:58
Speaker 1: I'm really excited about. That's my first book. It all
20:01
Speaker 1: starts when you do, and it's available for pre orda
20:03
Speaker 1: right now because it's coming out in just a few weeks.
20:06
Speaker 1: It's everything I've learned from therapy, from my own life,
20:09
Speaker 1: and from the conversations I've been having with people for years.
20:12
Speaker 1: Just search. It all starts when you do by care
20:14
Speaker 1: Gains and pre or to your copy today, available wherever
20:17
Speaker 1: books are sold. If we're allowed to admit that parenting
20:22
Speaker 1: is hard, right, we're allowed to admit that it's challenging,
20:25
Speaker 1: then the next question becomes, why do so many fathers
20:30
Speaker 1: feel so incredibly guilty for wanting anything outside of fatherhood?
20:37
Speaker 1: And maybe this is this is a good time to
20:40
Speaker 1: norm the audience because that's not everyone's understanding of fathers
20:45
Speaker 1: and fatherhood. But I feel like we got a nice
20:48
Speaker 1: little group here, and I feel like you all know
20:50
Speaker 1: me enough to know where I stand when it comes
20:52
Speaker 1: to gender and equality and things like that. But we
20:57
Speaker 1: gotta have a recording moment before I keep continue on
21:00
Speaker 1: with fatherhood because in the world there is a profound
21:05
Speaker 1: cynicism around men in masculinity. It is unavoidable whether you
21:10
Speaker 1: think men deserve that cynicism or whether you think it's misplaced.
21:14
Speaker 1: I'm saying that it exists, and it is creeping into
21:18
Speaker 1: every part of our socials, like geist, including this conversation.
21:22
Speaker 1: And what I find is that the baseline for how
21:28
Speaker 1: folks that are either upset with men, frustrated with men,
21:32
Speaker 1: have been violated by men, hate men, and ultimately aren't
21:38
Speaker 1: in community with and constantly having humanistic conversations with men.
21:44
Speaker 1: Fatherhood is always framed from the perspective of what you're
21:49
Speaker 1: not doing, what you're not being, what you're not giving,
21:53
Speaker 1: what you're not sacrificing. It's a very negative view of fatherhood.
21:59
Speaker 1: What you don't deserve, what like, how do you deserve
22:02
Speaker 1: the rest as the father? You're not doing anything. I've
22:04
Speaker 1: read that so many times, even try have a therapist friend,
22:08
Speaker 1: very well known, who started sticking up and saying, hey,
22:11
Speaker 1: after a baby is born, men go through a lot
22:14
Speaker 1: of not just social but there are a lot of
22:17
Speaker 1: horrimonal changes in neurochemical changes that men go through. And
22:22
Speaker 1: she got killed by a lot of women who who
22:26
Speaker 1: were in a place to really acknowledge that that experience
22:30
Speaker 1: of anything postpartum also extends the men to not in
22:34
Speaker 1: the same capacity. It's not comparable in the slightest, not
22:37
Speaker 1: even close. But that doesn't mean that it's not still remarkable,
22:41
Speaker 1: and it doesn't mean that it deserves to be overlooked.
22:44
Speaker 1: And because men have so much power in society, we
22:47
Speaker 1: have institutionally we think that men have power individually in
22:51
Speaker 1: the same capacity, and we overlook where men stumble, very
22:55
Speaker 1: very hard, and their fatherhood is one of those places.
22:58
Speaker 1: So I just wanted to normal audience because the idea
23:02
Speaker 1: of men being neglect for as fathers, there's so much evidence.
23:04
Speaker 1: Did y'all see the new evidence about millennial dads and
23:07
Speaker 1: how millennial dads spend more time with their children than
23:10
Speaker 1: any other fathers in history, any other fathers. And do
23:14
Speaker 1: you know what group spends the most time with their
23:16
Speaker 1: children out all millennials, Black fathers. Black fathers spend a
23:23
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of time with their children. And if you
23:26
Speaker 1: don't think that something that flips so hard and the
23:29
Speaker 1: course of three decades doesn't need special attention, that, I
23:33
Speaker 1: don't know if you're in a place to be a
23:36
Speaker 1: champion for that thing to succeed, we got to acknowledge
23:40
Speaker 1: it we gotta acknowledge it. It's a different thing. So
23:43
Speaker 1: I got to put that on the table before we
23:44
Speaker 1: start talking about this, because not everyone sees fatherhood is
23:48
Speaker 1: worthy of this conversation or see men as worthy of
23:51
Speaker 1: helping this area because they're so deficit focused. They see
23:56
Speaker 1: men through the lens of what they're not and not
23:58
Speaker 1: what men have become. You know what, Nah, let's stay
24:03
Speaker 1: in the moment while we're here, because we don't oftentimes
24:06
Speaker 1: have intelligent conversations or high level conversations about this. I
24:10
Speaker 1: want to read off some research real quick that I find.
24:13
Speaker 1: I found, so the Pure Research Center shout out to Pew.
24:15
Speaker 1: They're really good friends of mine. Pure Research Center found
24:18
Speaker 1: that millennial dads have tripled the amount of time dedicated
24:21
Speaker 1: to childcare compared to dads from nineteen sixty five. I
24:25
Speaker 1: think my mom was born in a fifty, so that's
24:27
Speaker 1: the decade after my mom was born Jesus Louise in
24:31
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. In a twenty sixteen study, rather, the Pure
24:34
Speaker 1: Research Center also found that fifty seven percent of millennial
24:37
Speaker 1: dads consider being a parent it's part of their identity,
24:41
Speaker 1: which is only one percent less than mothers. At fifty
24:44
Speaker 1: eight percent man, man, man one percent less seeing that
24:52
Speaker 1: as a part of your identity. I don't know, man,
24:57
Speaker 1: that I feel like that's something that we got to
24:59
Speaker 1: pay attention to. We neglect that. I feel like we're
25:01
Speaker 1: doing society at disservice, real talk, real talk. So let's
25:07
Speaker 1: use this as a moment to slide into that. I
25:09
Speaker 1: think that's a good little segue into when fatherhood becomes
25:14
Speaker 1: your entire identity, because that's happened for a lot of
25:18
Speaker 1: men that are no shoutout to my dog Sean Williams.
25:20
Speaker 1: At the Dad Gang, we host this even called Dad's House.
25:23
Speaker 1: You host anywhere between one hundred and one hundred and
25:24
Speaker 1: fifty men and just have an honest conversation about fatherhood psychologically,
25:29
Speaker 1: what it means, what everyone's going through, and trying to
25:31
Speaker 1: get men to build community or shared experiences. So I
25:35
Speaker 1: hear a lot of this all the time. One question
25:40
Speaker 1: that I ask those men often is at what point
25:43
Speaker 1: does devotion to your family begin to erase your identity? Yeah.
25:50
Speaker 1: A lot of the men in the group say, Man,
25:51
Speaker 1: I didn't think I lose myself in fatherhood. It's like, oh, buddy,
25:54
Speaker 1: let's talk about it. Let's talk about all the ways
25:57
Speaker 1: you lose yourself and then you lose yourself again, and
25:59
Speaker 1: then you change, and when you try to get back
26:01
Speaker 1: to who you once were, that person doesn't exist anymore.
26:04
Speaker 1: So then you got to figure out who you are
26:06
Speaker 1: after neglecting yourself after a long time. That's tough, man,
26:10
Speaker 1: that's tough. That's like you jump in the ocean and
26:12
Speaker 1: the current takes you two hundred feet out and by
26:14
Speaker 1: the time your hair pop back out, you further away
26:17
Speaker 1: from the beach. Every couple of minutes, you just get
26:19
Speaker 1: further further away from the beach and it becomes disoriented.
26:22
Speaker 1: So I want to dig into how to notice that
26:25
Speaker 1: that's happening and what you can actually do about it. Historically,
26:33
Speaker 1: at least from what I've seen in conversations that I've had,
26:36
Speaker 1: fathers have been taught that the best dads are the
26:41
Speaker 1: dads that sacrifice everything. Like, if you get around a
26:45
Speaker 1: group of men, multi generational, they'll tell you that fatherhood
26:48
Speaker 1: is about sacrifice and not being a miserable sufferer through
26:52
Speaker 1: your sacrifice. You should be honored to sacrifice for your family,
26:56
Speaker 1: even if it takes everything from you. So what that's
26:58
Speaker 1: your job? Yet kid, don't agree with that. That ain't
27:02
Speaker 1: my philosophy. If that works for you, to do your thing, Patna,
27:05
Speaker 1: But that ain't that. That's not That's not something that
27:11
Speaker 1: I can get behind. And I'll tell you why. I've
27:15
Speaker 1: heard so many dads say, as long as my kids
27:18
Speaker 1: are happy, I'm good. I don't need nothing for Christmas.
27:22
Speaker 1: Opening y'all, watching y'all open up y'all gifts is all
27:25
Speaker 1: the joy I need. I'm not that father. I needs
27:28
Speaker 1: me something for Christmas. My joy is not specifically tied
27:33
Speaker 1: up to my kids joy. It's not them being joyful
27:36
Speaker 1: is great, but that's my happiness isn't based in that.
27:40
Speaker 1: And one thing with men that say that, when I
27:43
Speaker 1: get them into counseling, that seems noble. Right the whole
27:47
Speaker 1: my kids and all my kids are happy, I'm happy,
27:49
Speaker 1: it seems very noble. And then you get these men
27:51
Speaker 1: in counseling and you realize they can't tell you one
27:54
Speaker 1: thing that they enjoy, one thing that they look forward to,
27:59
Speaker 1: or one thing that they're excited about that doesn't have
28:01
Speaker 1: to do with money, work, or family. They can't tell you,
28:07
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, I want you to think
28:09
Speaker 1: about it. Right now, Give me something that gives me,
28:11
Speaker 1: one thing that excites you, one thing you look forward to,
28:15
Speaker 1: and one thing that you enjoy that doesn't have to
28:17
Speaker 1: do with getting money, work or family, doesn't have to
28:23
Speaker 1: do with being utilized. Because men have an over utility problem.
28:31
Speaker 1: Take a second to think about it happens all the time.
28:36
Speaker 1: It's typically around work and service. Men's identities are centered
28:39
Speaker 1: around working service. And when you're not working and you're
28:42
Speaker 1: not in service, it's something you don't know who or
28:45
Speaker 1: what you are, what you're doing, or what it's all for.
28:48
Speaker 1: I call that dependent joy, because your happiness is dependent
28:52
Speaker 1: on factors that you yourself. You can't necessarily change. You
28:55
Speaker 1: can influence them, but you can't control them. And when
28:58
Speaker 1: your happiness is outside of the realm with your own control,
29:05
Speaker 1: that means there's nothing that you can do to make
29:08
Speaker 1: yourself happy. You can move pieces in place and hope
29:10
Speaker 1: it works, but you don't have your finger on the button.
29:13
Speaker 1: And that and that is the opposite of living an
29:15
Speaker 1: autonomous life. I don't know what happened. It used to
29:24
Speaker 1: be family comes first, and somewhere along the way it
29:29
Speaker 1: became family comes first, So I don't matter in that
29:34
Speaker 1: second part. You might not say it out loud. You
29:37
Speaker 1: might not you might not say verbatim I do not matter.
29:41
Speaker 1: Those words may not escape your lips, but the thought
29:45
Speaker 1: may trickle over your brain. I talk about it in
29:47
Speaker 1: my book. It all starts when you do. I don't
29:49
Speaker 1: call it negative self talk because it's not always talk.
29:52
Speaker 1: It's negative self messaging. It's not always words in your mind.
29:56
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's an impulse. Sometimes it's a flash of a memory.
30:00
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's an instinct. That negative self messaging comes in
30:03
Speaker 1: and creeps in, and it really controls how you move
30:06
Speaker 1: throughout your own life. You notice it in the fact
30:09
Speaker 1: that you don't go to the gym as much. You'll
30:11
Speaker 1: notice it in the fact that you don't participate in
30:13
Speaker 1: activities that you enjoy. You disappear. You'll disappear, you don't
30:18
Speaker 1: connect with friends as much. And man, the thing is,
30:21
Speaker 1: when I look like a bomb, I know I disappeared
30:23
Speaker 1: in the fatherhood. When you don't even dress or put
30:26
Speaker 1: throw into your appearance anymore, you just you putting on
30:29
Speaker 1: clothes so you ain't naked. That's how some of the ways,
30:34
Speaker 1: that's how you disappear. You don't say it, you become it,
30:39
Speaker 1: and that typically leads me to this question, what's the
30:41
Speaker 1: difference between sacrifice and self erasure? What's the difference between
30:47
Speaker 1: sacrifice and self erasure? Well, on this side you have sacrifice,
30:51
Speaker 1: and sacrifice says that my needs matter, but right now
30:54
Speaker 1: your needs come first. That's self sacrifice. But self erasure
31:00
Speaker 1: means that my needs stop mattering. When I became a
31:04
Speaker 1: parent doesn't matter what I want. All that matters is
31:08
Speaker 1: that I'm an affective parent. I think that comes from
31:10
Speaker 1: a number of different places. Sometimes we're running toward the
31:13
Speaker 1: idea of what the parent that we like, the parenthood
31:16
Speaker 1: experience we enjoyed, we're running toward what that was. Sometimes
31:19
Speaker 1: we're running away from the parenthood experience that we survived.
31:22
Speaker 1: We survived our parents, we're running away from that. Sometimes
31:26
Speaker 1: we're doing a little bit of both, running away from
31:27
Speaker 1: the terrible, running closer towards the idealistic. But somewhere in
31:33
Speaker 1: that mix we can get lost. Not you the parent,
31:35
Speaker 1: not you the dad, not you the mom, not you
31:39
Speaker 1: the person, because you exist beyond all of those roles.
31:45
Speaker 1: Why don't people tell men as much. I've been to
31:47
Speaker 1: a lot of women empowerment conferences, some really good women
31:50
Speaker 1: empowerment conferences. They do a good job of telling women
31:54
Speaker 1: you exist outside of motherhood, and I think that's such
31:56
Speaker 1: a fire message. Why don't we ever tell dads they
31:59
Speaker 1: exist outside of fatherhood? I think because the narrative is
32:03
Speaker 1: that dads are such trash, irresponsible and incompetent figures that
32:09
Speaker 1: telling them that you exist outside of fatherhood is nonsensical
32:13
Speaker 1: because I don't think we see men as seeing themselves
32:16
Speaker 1: as existing in fatherhood. Uh, maybe need invite a sociologists
32:21
Speaker 1: onto the pot to break that down better for me.
32:24
Speaker 1: You notice, like when I say you disappear like Homo
32:27
Speaker 1: Simpson into the bush, you notice that you lose a
32:30
Speaker 1: couple of things. You're losing hobbies, You're losing friendships, you're
32:34
Speaker 1: losing dreams. You're losing creativity, man, your ability to just
32:39
Speaker 1: be creative. And that doesn't mean that you're painting or
32:42
Speaker 1: rapping like you can have. You be a person in
32:44
Speaker 1: finance and your approach to your job's still very creative.
32:48
Speaker 1: You have a creative way of doing it. But you
32:50
Speaker 1: lose some of that creative agency when you believe that
32:54
Speaker 1: your needs don't matter anymore. And that's unfortunate because kids
32:59
Speaker 1: learn so much from how they see their caregivers operate.
33:04
Speaker 1: When they see a parent whose entire identity revolves around caregiving,
33:11
Speaker 1: they don't just see what you do for them, they
33:14
Speaker 1: also notice what you're not doing for yourself. You know.
33:17
Speaker 1: In that clip I talked about my mom in the
33:21
Speaker 1: original clip, in the IG video that I posted, I
33:24
Speaker 1: talk about my mom, and my mom was an amazing mother. Man,
33:28
Speaker 1: she was so good. She was so good. I've only
33:32
Speaker 1: seen one mom that kind of looked like mine, and
33:34
Speaker 1: that was I don't know if you ever seen that
33:35
Speaker 1: Kanye West documentary when you could see Donda West. Donda
33:39
Speaker 1: West was a gem boy, good god. I remember so
33:42
Speaker 1: my homies being like dang. I wish I had a
33:44
Speaker 1: mom like that. I had the mom that everybody wished
33:47
Speaker 1: they had a mom like like that was. That was
33:49
Speaker 1: Sheila gaines Man. She was an absolute beast. And the
33:55
Speaker 1: most unfortunate thing about my mom's life is when she
33:57
Speaker 1: became a mom, she forgot that she was person man,
34:00
Speaker 1: and she did not feed herself. She made sure I
34:03
Speaker 1: was good. I was emotionally sound, I was mature, I
34:06
Speaker 1: was independent, I was strong will I was confident. I
34:09
Speaker 1: wasn't afraid to use my voice. I wasn't afraid to
34:12
Speaker 1: defend myself like my mom built me to be this
34:14
Speaker 1: person that I am. I am this way because of her,
34:17
Speaker 1: and she neglected herself. And as much as i'm I'm
34:21
Speaker 1: a good parent, but i'm I'm, I can't. I'm nothing
34:26
Speaker 1: like she was. Man, that that's an impossible thing to
34:29
Speaker 1: try to be. And I'm not trying to be that.
34:33
Speaker 1: But I noticed, Man, that self neglect. That's something that
34:37
Speaker 1: I don't want for my life. I don't want to
34:40
Speaker 1: die so deep in the parenthood that care is no longer.
34:44
Speaker 1: He's just immery in City's daddy. I can't. I can't
34:48
Speaker 1: live like that. Man. More importantly, a parent who doesn't
34:54
Speaker 1: have identity outside of parenthood is kind of like a
34:58
Speaker 1: spouse who doesn't have identity identity of being a wife
35:00
Speaker 1: and husband. You put too much pressure on a relationship.
35:04
Speaker 1: It's too much pressure. And when you're a parent and
35:08
Speaker 1: you overidentify with parenthood, it becomes so much of a
35:11
Speaker 1: part of who you are. When your kids grow up
35:13
Speaker 1: and they don't need you as much anymore, it becomes
35:16
Speaker 1: challenging for you to adjust and every act of independence
35:19
Speaker 1: that they have will feel like an active defiance in betrayal.
35:22
Speaker 1: Not every that's that's that's over speaking, but a lot
35:26
Speaker 1: and it's not And it's not betrayal. It's a kid
35:29
Speaker 1: maturing into a young person who can be autonomous and
35:33
Speaker 1: self responsible. That's how the story is supposed to go.
35:35
Speaker 1: When you overidentify, it's hard to let go. It's hard
35:38
Speaker 1: to see that, and you end up hurting a relationship
35:40
Speaker 1: in the law run. So so care if healthy fatherhood
35:45
Speaker 1: shouldn't consume your entire identity, bro, what does healthy fatherhood
35:50
Speaker 1: actually look like? Man, I'm so god, I'm so glad
35:53
Speaker 1: you asked. Let's talk about it. I need you, your
35:58
Speaker 1: kids need you, and you to not just become a
36:04
Speaker 1: good father. We all need you to become and maintain
36:11
Speaker 1: being a whole father. A good father is what you do.
36:20
Speaker 1: It's how you perform. There's nothing wrong with that. A
36:24
Speaker 1: whole father is who you are, how you show up
36:29
Speaker 1: in a quiet moments, what you lean into, what you
36:33
Speaker 1: do when no one's looking. That's the critical piece right
36:38
Speaker 1: there that I need us to hone in on and
36:41
Speaker 1: raise to the utmost importance. Now, maintaining that identity in
36:46
Speaker 1: real life is not easy, and when I struggle with it.
36:50
Speaker 1: There's a few things that I do to bring me
36:54
Speaker 1: back down or to recenter myself. Literally recenter me, my myself,
37:00
Speaker 1: me the person I meet a dad, And you know
37:03
Speaker 1: how I like to do. I do my high effort,
37:05
Speaker 1: my medium effort, and my low effort. So my high effort.
37:09
Speaker 1: What I do to kind of recenter and just get
37:12
Speaker 1: back to who I am is I choose a day
37:16
Speaker 1: and I disappear. Of course, I give the wife the
37:19
Speaker 1: heads up. I put it in the shared family calendar,
37:21
Speaker 1: and baby next Wednesday, I'm out. And what do I
37:24
Speaker 1: do with that day? Man, everything and nothing at the
37:28
Speaker 1: same time. It depends. Sometimes I lean into my hobbies
37:32
Speaker 1: and my personal interests. I'll go to the spa, I'll
37:34
Speaker 1: go to the gun range. I'll just hang with my friends.
37:37
Speaker 1: My friends who are dads do not just get a
37:39
Speaker 1: lot of free time to hang with their friends because
37:40
Speaker 1: they feel so guilty all the time. None of it's
37:43
Speaker 1: so hard for us to connect and get together. We'll
37:46
Speaker 1: hang out a coffee shop, and then we'll move from
37:48
Speaker 1: the coffee shopping and we'll go sit at the park.
37:51
Speaker 1: Go from the park, we might go shoot hoops a
37:52
Speaker 1: little bit, go for hoops and then go get dinner.
37:54
Speaker 1: You know, we spend a whole day together and feed
37:57
Speaker 1: and nourish the parts of ourselves that don't need to
38:00
Speaker 1: be needed. There's a I maybe it said it on
38:04
Speaker 1: the pod before. There's a guy following TikTok. His name
38:07
Speaker 1: is be a bad Boy. I find him to be
38:09
Speaker 1: really smart, and he had this quote one time. I
38:12
Speaker 1: don't know if I agree with it, but I find
38:13
Speaker 1: it interesting. He says that women connect with women for
38:18
Speaker 1: support and men connect with men to not have to
38:22
Speaker 1: be support. Don't know if I agree with that, but
38:25
Speaker 1: it's very thought provoking. And when I'm with my friends,
38:28
Speaker 1: it is usually to not be needed, you know, spending
38:30
Speaker 1: the day not being needed. So that's the high level. Now,
38:33
Speaker 1: the medium effort is I just take time in the
38:35
Speaker 1: house when the house is quiet, to just do things
38:37
Speaker 1: that I enjoy. It used to be the PS five.
38:40
Speaker 1: I ain't gonna say it used to be. It's still is.
38:41
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm a Madden dude. I like playing four as
38:44
Speaker 1: a I'm not really a call of duty guy, but
38:46
Speaker 1: I'm a gamer. You know. I play Ghost of Sushima,
38:50
Speaker 1: ghosta Yota. I beat both of them joints I love games,
38:53
Speaker 1: but there's something about I can lose six hours in
38:56
Speaker 1: a game sitting down and it doesn't feel like I
38:58
Speaker 1: did anything for myself. It's fun in the moment, but
39:01
Speaker 1: when it's done, it doesn't feel restorative, you know. It
39:04
Speaker 1: felt like a placeholder instead of something that was pouring
39:06
Speaker 1: back into me. So now I'll break the legos out
39:09
Speaker 1: bro and I'll just start doing legos. I'll put on
39:13
Speaker 1: the House of the Dragon in the background, or Game
39:15
Speaker 1: of Thrones or something I'm interested in, and I'll just
39:18
Speaker 1: build the legos. Or I listen to music, or I listen
39:20
Speaker 1: to a podcast. Those things help me, and that's medium effort.
39:24
Speaker 1: I do that when the kids a sleep on, when
39:26
Speaker 1: the wife is off doing her own thing, just I
39:28
Speaker 1: could be not disturbed and not dependent on it. And
39:30
Speaker 1: then there's a low effort when I don't have a
39:32
Speaker 1: lot of time and I don't have a lot of
39:34
Speaker 1: bandwidth to do all of those things. I listen hear
39:37
Speaker 1: me out man. I listen to playlists from points in
39:42
Speaker 1: my life when I didn't have crushing responsibilities on my shoulders.
39:45
Speaker 1: Twenty four seven, I just listen to my twenty twenty
39:48
Speaker 1: play ooh, I'm lying twenty twenty was heavy. I listened
39:53
Speaker 1: to my twenty eighteen I think it was playlist. That's
39:56
Speaker 1: why my baby she was just born. So that was
39:58
Speaker 1: still the easy part. And it's just reminded me of
40:01
Speaker 1: just that time, and I recaptured some of the joy
40:04
Speaker 1: and some of the good feelings just in a moment.
40:06
Speaker 1: You know, those are things that I do to remind
40:10
Speaker 1: myself that I'm still important in all this mess and
40:14
Speaker 1: all my duties that I still have to do for myself,
40:18
Speaker 1: and in the noise of family life and the hustle
40:20
Speaker 1: of bustle of trying to protect them and provide for
40:23
Speaker 1: them and making sure they're happy, making sure they feel
40:25
Speaker 1: safe and love and heard and validated and all the things,
40:29
Speaker 1: making sure they feel all the things. Making sure that
40:32
Speaker 1: I'm still holding what's important to me to some value too,
40:37
Speaker 1: and making sure that I'm spending some time doing those things,
40:41
Speaker 1: because if you don't, you will blink and be a husk,
40:45
Speaker 1: You'll be a shall of yourself. And that's not something
40:47
Speaker 1: that I'm not sure I can live with. At least
40:51
Speaker 1: that's not something i'm sure I can live with comfortably. Y'all.
41:00
Speaker 1: Real quick, let's take a pause from the episode because
41:02
Speaker 1: I want to acknowledge you. You you make this pod possible,
41:06
Speaker 1: You meet these episodes possible. Y'all are the reason to
41:08
Speaker 1: this podcast very early and very amazing success. So thank you.
41:13
Speaker 1: And when y'all give me, man, when y'all give us flowers,
41:17
Speaker 1: we put them things in a vase, puts on water
41:19
Speaker 1: in them, and we show them off our friends. And
41:21
Speaker 1: the way that y'all give us flowers is by leaving comments,
41:24
Speaker 1: leaving comments on Apple pod, Spotify, wherever you pod. And
41:27
Speaker 1: I want to read you one off just to show
41:29
Speaker 1: y'all eye, I rock with you. I rock with you
41:31
Speaker 1: super hard. So this person is named m L. D.
41:35
Speaker 1: Chi Molducci. It's gonna be Mauducci for now. That's what
41:40
Speaker 1: we're doing. And Maducci, you left me a five star rating.
41:44
Speaker 1: Thank you for that. And Maducci says, I'm I'm a
41:49
Speaker 1: huge believer of mental health and seeing a therapist. Just
41:54
Speaker 1: as you take your vitamin supplement for your body, this
41:56
Speaker 1: podcast is a great mental supplement for your mind. And
42:00
Speaker 1: here man, thank you. I appreciate that. That always lets
42:04
Speaker 1: us know that we're on track and we're doing a
42:06
Speaker 1: good job. So you don't this podcast is free. Like
42:09
Speaker 1: we given all free were given all free game. It
42:12
Speaker 1: doesn't cost you anything. If you would like to repay us,
42:16
Speaker 1: you don't have to pull your wallet out. All you
42:17
Speaker 1: got to do is leave a comment, leave us five
42:20
Speaker 1: stars if you feel so inclined. I'm not making you
42:22
Speaker 1: do what. I'm just saying. If you did it, it'd
42:23
Speaker 1: be cool. It'd be cool if you did it, and
42:25
Speaker 1: if you did it, it'd be cool. But leave us
42:27
Speaker 1: five stars, leave us a message, let us know what
42:29
Speaker 1: you think. We honestly and truly appreciate that. So thank you,
42:34
Speaker 1: the maduci and everybody else out there. Now back to
42:38
Speaker 1: the episode. All right, we talked about a lot. Let's
42:43
Speaker 1: let's pause and let's take a moment to be reflective.
42:46
Speaker 1: Because we put everything on the table. Now, let's sort
42:49
Speaker 1: it in the categories. You know, we spilled all the
42:51
Speaker 1: eminem's on the kitchen table. Let's let's separate the blues
42:54
Speaker 1: from the browns, from the greens, from the reds from
42:56
Speaker 1: the yellows. Are they red eminems? Think?
42:58
Speaker 2: So?
42:59
Speaker 1: I think them? Now let's go with that. So collectively,
43:05
Speaker 1: I want us to understand our kids thrive in environments
43:10
Speaker 1: where they get to see their parents be whole human beings.
43:14
Speaker 1: And when I say thrive, I want you to think
43:16
Speaker 1: less weather and more climate. It's not you won't see
43:20
Speaker 1: them thriving day to day like you want to say,
43:22
Speaker 1: Oh you know, I'm in a good place. I can
43:23
Speaker 1: see juniors really really taking off on this Tuesday. It's
43:26
Speaker 1: not that's weather. Think climate, which is the temperature and
43:30
Speaker 1: weather systems of a place over a long period of time.
43:33
Speaker 1: Think about over twelve years consistently your son and your
43:36
Speaker 1: daughter seeing you be a whole person and what that
43:38
Speaker 1: does for them. My wife always talks about I'm not
43:40
Speaker 1: gonna let motherhood beat me to death because my mom
43:42
Speaker 1: wasn't like that. She says, I saw my mom go
43:44
Speaker 1: on vacation with her girlfriends. They be on the beach
43:46
Speaker 1: and they bathing suits and the big ass nineteen eighties glasses.
43:50
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. It's that matters. It matters
43:54
Speaker 1: even think about the story from my mom. It can
43:56
Speaker 1: go in the inverse way too. I saw my mom
43:59
Speaker 1: sac of everything to be a parent, and she died
44:02
Speaker 1: an unhappy woman, and I don't want to be that way.
44:06
Speaker 1: So I want you to really think about being an
44:09
Speaker 1: entire person and your kids seeing you be a whole
44:12
Speaker 1: human that deals with the natural range of emotions that
44:15
Speaker 1: change from day to day, week to week, month to month.
44:17
Speaker 1: I think that is incredibly healthy for a family system.
44:20
Speaker 1: Real rap, then I want you to kind of reflect
44:24
Speaker 1: and ask yourself a few questions. Let me give you.
44:26
Speaker 1: Let me give you a few that you on. Number one,
44:30
Speaker 1: ask yourself, who am I outside of being a dad?
44:34
Speaker 1: Who am I? And try to answer it in like
44:36
Speaker 1: one or two word sentences. Who am I outside of
44:39
Speaker 1: being a dad? I want if you can realize the
44:42
Speaker 1: parts of yourself that you neglected. I think that's a
44:45
Speaker 1: great first step. So if you can recognize there are
44:48
Speaker 1: parts of yourself that have been neglected, I want you
44:50
Speaker 1: to ask what parts of myself have I neglected? I
44:53
Speaker 1: remember when I first became a father, like after those
44:56
Speaker 1: first like after like the first year, Man, I was struggling,
45:00
Speaker 1: and I went to a bar with my frat brothers,
45:02
Speaker 1: my chapter brothers, and one of my chapter brothers Maul,
45:07
Speaker 1: and malls an asshole. But he's he when he loves you.
45:10
Speaker 1: He loves you, man, and he's a great guy. And
45:12
Speaker 1: he says, Bro, you lost your What do he say
45:15
Speaker 1: you lost your uh, your luster. He's like, man, you're dull. Bro,
45:19
Speaker 1: He's like, you lost your You ain't got no shine
45:21
Speaker 1: no more. And that's when I realized I had neglected
45:24
Speaker 1: a part of myself to fill my duties, and especially
45:28
Speaker 1: with your black father real quick caveat because the expectation
45:32
Speaker 1: is that you're less, and sometimes black fathers over perform
45:35
Speaker 1: being present to make sure that they are not a stereotype.
45:39
Speaker 1: Over perform being present and being active to the point
45:45
Speaker 1: of complete and total self neglect. So you want to
45:49
Speaker 1: be mindful of that will part of yourself you're neglected.
45:51
Speaker 1: I want you to answer this question. What restores me?
45:54
Speaker 1: What makes me feel full? What makes me feel fulfilled?
45:57
Speaker 1: Whenever you're a servant to any calls you need restorative practices?
46:01
Speaker 1: What brings me back home? For me, it's vacations. Bring
46:05
Speaker 1: me back home like it ain't got to be nothing crazy.
46:08
Speaker 1: It's staycationing. We live in DC. I can go to Baltimore, next,
46:11
Speaker 1: next major city up, spend a weekend in a hotel,
46:14
Speaker 1: come back and I feel refreshed. Sometimes the spa doesn't
46:16
Speaker 1: for me. Go to a spot, spend a whole day,
46:18
Speaker 1: then feel good, feel great. Sometimes to spend the time
46:22
Speaker 1: with friends, spend time with the homies, go grab dinner
46:24
Speaker 1: at a West African restaurant in the city with the homies,
46:27
Speaker 1: and not being a rush to be home to tuck
46:29
Speaker 1: somebody in or put somebody in bed, to check in,
46:31
Speaker 1: or anything that matters. So think about the things that
46:34
Speaker 1: restore you and how it makes you feel. And then finally,
46:38
Speaker 1: I want you to think about what kind of adult
46:39
Speaker 1: you want your child to your child to become a
46:42
Speaker 1: lot of us are comprised of experiences that have occurred
46:47
Speaker 1: in our childhood. We saw our parents be a certain way,
46:50
Speaker 1: and we picked that up. We think it's us being
46:52
Speaker 1: uniquely yes, And really it's kind of like a side effect.
46:55
Speaker 1: We got the secondhand smoke of our parents' personalities in
46:58
Speaker 1: the ways that they view the world. So what kind
47:01
Speaker 1: of secondhand smoke will your kids pick up from you?
47:03
Speaker 1: What will they be seeing, what kind of adult do
47:06
Speaker 1: you want them to become? And more importantly, how are
47:08
Speaker 1: you modeling that? Some to think about now while you're
47:14
Speaker 1: thinking about that. If today's conversation resonated with you at all,
47:18
Speaker 1: whether you're a parent or not, I find that these
47:20
Speaker 1: conversations are really helpful You don't have to have kids
47:23
Speaker 1: to kind of understand this, because we might not all
47:26
Speaker 1: have kids, but we all have been somebody's child, and
47:29
Speaker 1: understanding parenthood from this perspective, even when we're not parents,
47:33
Speaker 1: helps us process our childhood experiences, but how we're moving
47:36
Speaker 1: through adulthood a lot more seamlessly. So if any of
47:39
Speaker 1: this resonated with you, man, you know I'm building this
47:43
Speaker 1: community brigerdy by brickerdy no snakety all right, and you
47:48
Speaker 1: are an important brick. We got to stack them things
47:51
Speaker 1: and one of the ways we do that is by
47:53
Speaker 1: hearing from you. So leave me a message on learnohardwaypod
47:56
Speaker 1: dot com. Y'all have been doing a brilliant job of
47:59
Speaker 1: leaving some amazing messages for us. Man, I can't wait
48:02
Speaker 1: till we drop the next mailbag episode, but I want
48:05
Speaker 1: to hear from you. I want to know what you're
48:06
Speaker 1: getting from what I'm saying. This is not just me
48:08
Speaker 1: talking to a mic, all right. This is this is
48:11
Speaker 1: an extended conversation that you and I are having together.
48:13
Speaker 1: So leave me a message. Talk to me. Tell me
48:16
Speaker 1: a hard moments when you stumbled upon what you realize
48:18
Speaker 1: what you realized that you forgot what you forgot, that
48:20
Speaker 1: you realize all of that, I would love to hear
48:23
Speaker 1: from Go ahead lead that for me. Appreciate you in advance.
48:27
Speaker 1: To be clear, as we land this plane, this episode
48:32
Speaker 1: is not about loving your children less. That's that's That's
48:37
Speaker 1: not what we're talking about here. That's not the experience
48:40
Speaker 1: that is in front of us. It's about recognizing that
48:43
Speaker 1: the healthiest fathers, the healthiest parents, raise the healthiest children.
48:49
Speaker 1: And do you know why. It's because they've continuously shown
48:54
Speaker 1: them what a whole, healthy, grounded, and emotionally sound looks like.
49:02
Speaker 1: They don't just talk about it, they are it, and
49:05
Speaker 1: the children get to experience that time and time again
49:08
Speaker 1: as they interact with you through the course of their lives.
49:12
Speaker 1: You could be fully involved in and messed with your
49:16
Speaker 1: family without losing yourself to that ameshment. Your entire identity
49:23
Speaker 1: does not need to revolve around fatherhood in order for
49:26
Speaker 1: you to be a good father. That's not the way
49:28
Speaker 1: that it works. If you could take a moment to
49:31
Speaker 1: just honor this, I want you to try to honor
49:34
Speaker 1: the idea that those things don't compete with one another,
49:40
Speaker 1: they actually strengthen one another, and that can work to
49:44
Speaker 1: your benefit in the most amazing ways possible. Make sure
49:47
Speaker 1: that you're taking care of yourself, make sure that you're
49:49
Speaker 1: taking care of the people and the spaces around you,
49:52
Speaker 1: and make sure that you're asking those people in them
49:54
Speaker 1: spaces to take care of you too. That's how these
49:57
Speaker 1: relationships work. And until next time, y'all take care. I'll
50:04
Speaker 1: see y'all on the next episode, Job Waldne Learn the
50:08
Speaker 1: Hard Way. As a production of iHeart Podcasts, I'm your
50:11
Speaker 1: host Ker Gaines. We're produced by Courtney Deans and Cason Alexander. Ashley. J.
50:17
Speaker 1: Hobbs is our senior producer. Our executive producers are Will Packer,
50:20
Speaker 1: Doctor Joey Harden Bradford, Alex Balden, and Carla Willmarris