Latest / Not Right Now / Understimulated or Overscheduled

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Understimulated or Overscheduled · Not Right Now

• 0:00
  [upbeat music] Hey, I have three kids. They eat so much. We try to eat real food. We try to cook when we can.
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• 1:54
  [upbeat music] Having kids really sucks if you're someone who hates doing things that you don't wanna do. [upbeat music] Welcome to Not Right Now, the podcast about parenting through all of this.
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• 3:04
  And reminder, you can send questions or feedback to questions@notrightnow.show. [upbeat music] So you have the two kids in baseball right now, and your middle kid, she also-- Tell me what your sports are right now.
• 3:20
  She's doing the ninja stuff right now. She's really into that. That's super fun. So that's not too bad. It's twice a week. It could be more.
• 3:27
  She's a little nervous about that, and also her friend wouldn't be going to the other parts. As much as I would love to ship her out of the house again, I recognize I would be driving more anyways.
• 3:35
  And the boys are getting into baseball now, a couple weeks of practice, spring break, then the games start. They're already like, "What time is my game on Saturday the 19th?" I'm like, "I have no idea what time it is.
• 3:45
  I can't help you." You mean your calendar hasn't been-- Like, that's-- We haven't even mentioned on our notes, like, the software and the calendar populating that goes into sports.
• 3:55
  I'm crazy about, I'm a Nazi about calendars, but we don't have the schedules yet, so I was like, "I don't know." Like, I don't make these things up. They're not my rules. But yeah, so that's what we're entering spring.
• 4:05
  Oldest will still do some swimming here and there, but trying not to fucking burn him out on anything, much less that dumb sport that I spent my whole life in.
• 4:13
  But it'll be good, you know, sitting outside at practice, nighttime. It's good. So I think those are the things we're committed to right now.
• 4:19
  There's a couple little after-school things here and there, but I don't really count those because I don't have to drive them to them. I just have to pick them up 'cause it's after school. You know what I mean? Yeah.
• 4:29
  What about you? Well, volleyball is at school, but not directly after school, so there's been a lot of drive to school- Mm-hmm... pick up from school- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm... go back to school.
• 4:37
  But I like volleyball because it's very contained, and every play h- scores a point, so it moves really fast. Mm. Paul, my older one, his team is not doing so well so far, but selfishly, he's contributed to every game.
• 4:50
  Like, volleyball seems to be a good sport for him, so it is nice to be like, "Well, he scored some points." 'Cause I've also seen him be in sports where he added nothing, you know, to be-- and not being- Sure... a jerk.
• 5:01
  Like, he just was, like, the youngest and the smallest and, you know. He has fun. I don't know if he has hustle the way his little brother is. I hate the term hustle. I never had hustle.
• 5:10
  I still don't as a, you know, an athlete.
• 5:13
  And then there is tennis coming up, which is gonna be a total mystery, and we only signed our younger son up for that because the choice has been that and track, and I purely did not want to go to track meets.
• 5:24
  And I'm like, "He should pick up tennis pretty well." We play badminton in the backyard, and he actually, again, has hustle. Half the battle is moving around the court. Sure. He can do that.
• 5:34
  Like, you don't have to teach him to run around the court. Like, the technique of not lobbing the ball over the fence is a different thing, but that's- Yeah.
• 5:41
  And if he can play baseball and play badminton, he could probably play tennis.
• 5:44
  And then baseball, if people are listening and haven't done baseball yet, it is just fascinating how you sign up in February probably, and then at some point in April, the schedule lands on your head, and it is, like, good luck.
• 5:58
  Like, you have to figure it out 'cause it probably has nothing to do with your actual calendar and, like, what you would get done. Mm-hmm.
• 6:03
  And, you know, gamesAre supposed to last an hour and a half, but you never know, 'cause if it's a nice night, it may last longer.
• 6:11
  Don't forget half an hour early to warm up, and if you don't put that on the calendar, you're late or they get confused about is it a warm-up, the whole thing. Yeah.
• 6:19
  And our younger son was complaining because he and his friends are the only fourth graders on the team with a bunch of third graders, and then like, "Well, you get to be, you know, the big boy, the superstar," you know?
• 6:29
  Fuck yeah.
• 6:29
  And for anyone who's out there who has a kid who is young and, like, worries about them being, like, the, you know, the non-superstar, we had a funny thing happen last year where my son, who has, had an August birthday, young first grade, was on two championship teams with his best friend, 'cause just to be honest, he was on teams that just did really well.
• 6:48
  Like, he contributed a little bit more for baseball than football. But your kid can enjoy being on a championship team without necessarily being, like, the big kid.
• 6:57
  But this season it'll be interesting because odds are they won't do it again. We'll see how it goes. It's always a rough start to the season when it's freezing cold here and they're not warmed up, things like that. Ugh.
• 7:07
  So. Yep. You know. But I think back to when they were, like, in second grade and it was COVID, and it would, like, the inning would start with, like, nine runs walked in 'cause it was the start of kid pitch. Oh, God.
• 7:18
  And you- That's, ugh. Yeah. Yeah, and you're struggling to find any upside, to even lie to your kid. Like, you're just like, "I know this sucks. It sucks. You gotta grind it out," and it does get better.
• 7:30
  But it is so hard to find any upside. Like, it is, it can be really rough out there. It can be pretty brutal. All right. So is that everything you guys are doing for the spring? 'Cause I know- That is, yeah...
• 7:38
  you opted out of most things in the winter. How did that go? What's your postmortem on that? That was bad. I mean, here's the options, basically, as a parent.
• 7:46
  If you have a kid in sports, and I wanna put a little asterisk 'cause I think we should talk to the parents whose kids are not into sports.
• 7:52
  Oh, there's 4,000 things to do, and they're all either expensive or you have to drive to them or this or that. But yeah, no, it's not just sports. No. There's two options.
• 8:01
  You're either under-stimulated and your kids are bored and you are all sick of each other and stir crazy, or you're overscheduled and you're sick of everything and you're always washing and keeping track of equipment, to packing up and yelling at someone to remember their water bottle or, like, their equipment, and there's no in between.
• 8:16
  We did swim class, like, a once a week, half an hour class simply to brush up on strokes, honestly, to get out of the house. You know, that's not really competitive. So yeah, I wouldn't do it again.
• 8:28
  It sounds great until it's, like, a long winter and you're like, "I can't stand looking at you," and we all hate each other, and those 20 minutes of homework were not it.
• 8:37
  I mean, we're at a place now where we're more used to it, I guess. Like, we've given in. You know, we've fallen asleep in the cold and, like, this is nice and comfortable. And our kids, they don't complain about sports.
• 8:48
  Like, they still show up, you know what I mean? Go along to get along.
• 8:51
  'Cause our kid, especially young, used to lay down during soccer class, Little Kickers, and I would be so torn between being mad at him for doing that and embarrassing me- Mm-hmm...
• 9:03
  and also just, like, mad at myself, like, "I don't wanna be here. This sucks," you know? Mm. "What is this all about?"
• 9:07
  So it's a pleasure to have moved past that and to be like, "Wow, we're actually watching actual competition going on."
• 9:14
  Sometimes you watch some amazing plays, and to see that happen is, you know, it's like when you plant a seed and you take care of it and actually you see a little flower on there, and you're like, "Okay," you know, "finally."
• 9:24
  Yeah, you're not gonna reforest the planet here, but it's something. You planted a flower, even if you've almost killed it 40 times. Yeah.
• 9:31
  Yeah, for us, like, coming back to your comment about the 20 minutes of homework is not enough, like, our sort of baseline is, like, at all times you have to be signed up to do something with your body.
• 9:42
  I don't care what it is, except football. We're not doing it. Which is a whole different thing. I mean, it's not a whole different thing. It's a huge part of the thing, but we're not doing it.
• 9:51
  But not too much, 'cause there's three of them, and, you know, again, we've got this great support system with the two grandmas, and they're great, and, you know, they can help with some things.
• 10:02
  They can't help with other things. They're semi-interchangeable, but not. And Dana's working and a lot of her West Coast hours, so she can't necessarily help with the driving at night, which is fine.
• 10:11
  You know, that's the work. That's keeping the family going. And also, we want them to have some boredom, as long as it doesn't affect us.
• 10:19
  We want them to have some free time to, you know, 12, 13, sit in the fucking basement and listen to your, you know, Kurt Cobain, which I'm sure will end well. But it's a struggle, right? So that's just body stuff.
• 10:30
  Like, at one point, our youngest had found a... I'm really bummed this ended. The little coffee shop downstairs seats 12, 13 people, and they started having Tuesday night chess nights. Oh.
• 10:40
  And it was because the university's right here, William & Mary's right here. It was mostly, like, professors and students, and then my eight-year-old, who just, it was really nice for him because it was a way to engage,
• 10:52
  but he had to act a little grown-up, but also they were all so nice and patient with... They would obliterate him in 10 seconds, which would, for his ego, that was super helpful.
• 10:59
  But then they would say, "Okay, let's reset. Let's work our way through this. Let's do this." And he would be tired at the end, but in a good way, you know? Yep. And so that's great. And I didn't mind taking him.
• 11:10
  That was easy for me 'cause it's downstairs, so someone would drop him off, I would stay. That was super helpful logistics-wise. It cost, like, $3 to sign up on Eventbrite, which is...
• 11:19
  I mean, as you know, like, when everyone's like, "Why is the US soccer team so bad?" It's like, well, it's complicated.
• 11:24
  One, we have football and basketball, which takes a lot of great athletes, and basketball at least is much more affordable and has a, historically a faster, easier track to actually making money from it.
• 11:35
  But also soccer's so expensive. Like, it's completely insane. Like, they're all that way, but it's crazy. So whenever it was like, "Jess, for three bucks and it's downstairs," great, man, I'll do it.
• 11:44
  And so whenever one of my kids is like, "I wanna do this," I'm like, "Great." That's all the shit I'm constantly weighing at all times, you know? Mm-hmm.
• 11:51
  I wanna talk a little bit about the importance of sports to parents, especially dads, because I wanna know whether you were raised in a family where you would've m- maybe struggled in terms of your identity or relationship with your parents if you were not a sports kid, and how that would go.
• 12:10
  Yeah. I could see-You know, it was the opposite in the sense that, again, like, I was s- six foot, one seventy when I was, like, 11 and a half. And then, by the way, I have not grown since that day.
• 12:22
  Everyone was like, "He's gonna be 6'6," and it was great. And I crushed everyone. I was like top 25 swimmer in the country for this and this. I was throwing a baseball...
• 12:31
  I think it was, like, when I was 14, I was throwing at 82, 83. No idea where it's fucking going, just, like, killing children left and right. I was the- Oh...
• 12:38
  kid, the parents were like, "N- we definitely need to see a birth certificate. This can't be right, and it's definitely not safe for anyone involved." So I was also, you know, somewhat talented at those things.
• 12:48
  Because of those built-in things, I definitely tried less than I could have, but I would get away with it 'cause I was enormous. I didn't get away with it in school, but certainly high on my own supply for a lot of that.
• 13:00
  You know? I really loved, and still love, though it's finally starting to diminish, beating people. To me, there's, like, a subtle difference. There's winning and there's beating people, and I really- Oh... liked- Wow...
• 13:13
  be- it's not great, 'cause it, it turns out it also applied to, like, adulthood and board games with new friends. Dana was like, "This isn't fun for anybody involved," and she's Switzerland, as she says.
• 13:22
  She just wants everyone to have a great time. She'll just give people- Yeah... pieces of, you know, Settlers of Catan. Sure. You could've been an attorney in another world. Yeah. Not great.
• 13:30
  I mean, I loved it, really loved it. Again, high on my own supply part of it. E- everybody did some version of sports.
• 13:37
  I ended up swimming and playing baseball in college, and my siblings did various versions of that, and they did other stuff, too.
• 13:44
  Like, my younger brother swam and played some baseball, but he also stayed at the little Fife and Drum Corps here in town.
• 13:51
  I did that for two years, but then they were like, "Well, it either becomes almost a full-time job," and it's really cool. You learn a ton of history. You make money. You know, you show up. You learn a lot of structure.
• 14:01
  You get taught amazing music. You have a great relationship with people, but you can't do everything else at the same time.
• 14:07
  So I definitely chose more the sports route, and I'm sure there could've been some sort of issues, but there wasn't like, "You're gonna do this." I elected myself into that.
• 14:17
  And for my kids, again, like, our rule is just, "You gotta use your bodies, man. We're not gonna be indoor cats. And w- you know, I'm not making you run outside when"...
• 14:25
  I feel like I've learned a little bit from that when I signed Oliver up for baseball when he was younger, and then I coached his team. Like, I was definitely the dad who rode him harder- Oh... than the other kids.
• 14:36
  Not fun for everyone. So now, coach needs help, sure, I'll jump in. Yeah. I'll help out. Yeah. But I don't care if it's chess or whatever. And Dana's... She, uh, didn't grow up really doing any sports.
• 14:46
  She, like, skied some and horseback riding for a bit, but otherwise was theater and all this, and school, apparently, which is interesting.
• 14:53
  So less pressure on that front, but it's kinda turned into, again, you gotta do something with your body, but not too much, 'cause you're a child, and we don't wanna do all that, and there's three of you.
• 15:03
  Also, try a bunch of stuff, but once you sign up for something, you're gonna complete whatever the season is or whatever. We're not signing up, quitting, signing up, quitting, signing up, quitting- Yeah...
• 15:14
  'cause that's not life, unfortunately. So I guess that's kind of it. That's what it's boiled down to for us, at least, the ground rules of the whole thing. Uh-huh.
• 15:22
  As you know, like, they're getting older, and then they start to be like, "No, this is my thing," and you're like, "Oh, boy. Here we fucking go."
• 15:27
  It's just interesting, because I was sort of slotted into sports when I was younger, and I didn't have control over it. And my dad is very boomer man, in that he- Mm-hmm...
• 15:35
  still can remember, like, the 1952 Chicago White Sox lineup, you know? Mm-hmm.
• 15:41
  And he's a real sports guy, and so he taught me to bat left-handed, because that would obviously help me, you know, become a professional baseball player, and I'm not left-handed.
• 15:51
  And he would, like, make me stay in the backyard to get three more good hits or whatever.
• 15:55
  But then my brother was born, and he has these kinda weird eye issues where he can only see out of one eye at a time, and he has these, like, hand-eye coordinations, and he's just not a hustler.
• 16:06
  He ended up getting into TaeKwonDo and cross country.
• 16:09
  But in high school, I was on the badminton team freshman and sophomore year, which actually I think in retrospect was a lot of fun, a good sport to be into, but I quit as soon as I could and got into, like, drama and theater arts.
• 16:20
  Mm-hmm. And then in adulthood, got more into sort of more meditative sports now lately. I was into running until, like, the one piston broke, and I can't do it anymore, and that's fine.
• 16:30
  And now I'm into golf, which is good for your, like, nothing matters, let's take a nice long walk, you know? Mm.
• 16:35
  But my husband was not, like, a real sports kid either, so it's just been interesting to have these boys who they know, like, instinctively they need to get exercise.
• 16:44
  Like, they get themselves outside and get exercise, and I'm thankful for that, but it is just kind of crazy, especially with the younger one. Like, he will practice diving catches.
• 16:54
  Like, he will have you throw the ball to the ground to the right so he can practice diving, and I've seen him make that catch in a game. Mm. And I'm like, "Well, he worked on it."
• 17:03
  But it feels like a strange privilege, because the world, A- America is set up for athletic, for kids' athletics, and it's not fair, because not every kid likes to do that, you know?
• 17:14
  Or they do, and it's just totally not available to them, because they don't have a system of people who can take them to all this shit, much less afford it. Yeah. Right? Sign them up. Yeah, exactly. Right.
• 17:24
  And I remember a couple years ago having a play date with a friend of my kids, and the two of the kids started playing catch just 'cause there was a ball around, and this boy didn't wanna play catch, and he was mad as fuck.
• 17:35
  And his mom, I could tell, was feeling bad for him, and I felt bad for him, too, 'cause I was like, not every kid wants to play a sport.
• 17:42
  And fortunately, we live in a place, like, we live by this park district where they have something called the Imagination Game, which is, like, a LARPing kind of long-form game that people play. Mm-hmm.
• 17:51
  And, and you know, that's great. But we work pretty hard to keep them at a very mid-level. I hear these travel stories, travel baseball, and I'm like, "This sounds awful." All of it. Like, I don't wanna... No, thanks.
• 18:02
  No. Yeah. I'm like, as much as I do firmly believe in, like, objectively and in isolation, there is a lot to learn from both individual sports and team sports, right?
• 18:17
  And so our three sorta ground rules for anything you do, but I guess especially sports, areAnd they're kind of a flywheel, they work together, is try as hard as you can, right?
• 18:28
  Which is different, I think, from do your best, 'cause a lot of times it's not your fucking best, but it's the effort. Be the best teammate you can be, and have fun.
• 18:36
  When we talk to them about that and we go over and over, we're like, "Being a great teammate is fun." Isn't always fun, but it is being a great teammate. And et cetera, et cetera.
• 18:45
  And again, I don't care if that applies to theater or ballet, definitely not football, or you know, the battle of the books thing. It's like, you said you wanted to do this, you think it's cool to be the kid up on stage.
• 18:56
  I think it's awesome. You do have to read the books. That's part of being a good teammate. You can't just, like, be cool up there. If you're gonna do it, you gotta show up, and it's the same for a band or whatever it is.
• 19:06
  I do think you learn a lot about, like, how to handle yourself and how to be responsible to people in a, a sport of some sort.
• 19:12
  I think, you know, one of the positives of, like, a swimming or a track is it is the earliest lesson in control what you can control.
• 19:19
  'Cause it really is, as much as it's technically a team sport, you can't control at all what the other people are doing, as opposed to baseball or, or soccer, whatever.
• 19:26
  You really can only control, like, your race, and that is a nice lesson. You can cheer for people and all that, but you can also get that in theater, whatever.
• 19:35
  So when it really boils down to me, it's if your thing of using your body is I'm gonna walk the dog two miles a day, great. I don't give a shit. Yeah. Yeah.
• 19:42
  But you do have to do, again, other things that will get you those more fundamental lessons. 'Cause at some point, it's all hard to learn. So here's where I come out as a unexpected football parent- Mm...
• 19:55
  where I was you, and I was like, "Never football." I know all the reasons why.
• 20:00
  I've written content for the American Concussion Society and the International Concussion, like, and we all know about CTE and everything that's wrong with the NFL.
• 20:09
  But a couple years ago, we were switching the kids from one school to another for various reasons that we'll get into, and my kids were a little nervous about it- Sure... and reluctant.
• 20:20
  And so they were touring this new school, and there was a big picture of Evanston Catholic football team on the wall, and my son, my older son, was gazing at it wistfully.
• 20:30
  And I say for a lot of kids, especially boys, like, the trajectory goes from superheroes to Star Wars to Pokemon to athletes, in terms of the guys that you collect, guys that you're interested in.
• 20:43
  So he had just gotten into football guys, you know. And I said, "If I let you play football, would you be interested in transferring to this school more?" And he said, "Yeah." And I was like, "Well, shit."
• 20:54
  I had heard really good things about the way this team was organized. I had done a little bit of due diligence. And I was like, "Well, what the hell?"
• 21:02
  Honestly, I hate to sound so fatalistic, but you can get hit in the head with 100 mile an hour baseball just even attending a game as a spectator, you know? Sure. Sure. Totally. So, so yeah.
• 21:12
  So my son did tackle football. Like I said, he is young and small, so he hasn't seen a lot of action. I think he's kind of relieved about that in a way that I totally identify with.
• 21:25
  But when he first got his equipment and was putting on his pads and all that stuff, and you should have seen the way his little brother came out and looked at him like he was Iron Man. Sure. I don't know what to say.
• 21:37
  A- and so last year, his team won the championship. He got put in as a favor, you know, the last five minutes as a here you go.
• 21:45
  I don't know if he wants to play next year, 'cause he would probably have to play more, and I'm like, "This is totally up to you. You have to do something, but if you don't wanna play, I, I respect it."
• 21:53
  And I will say, another mom I know, she said her son got a concussion, not by playing in a game, but because his friend tackled him on the sideline without wearing a helmet and just playing around.
• 22:04
  Again, something that can happen without football. I don't have a takeaway on this. I guess my only story is how you can start off having one, you know, one set of values, and then you- No, totally...
• 22:14
  kind of go down the whole primrose path. No, totally. And by the way, like, it helped him transfer. Like, I will do anything to bribe my children. I don't give a shit about that.
• 22:23
  And then I'll just sneak it away, but yeah, it's part of the knowing too much, understanding more and more, like, how little we know about the brain, other than, like, how much it gets damaged.
• 22:33
  But can it build camaraderie? Of course. You know, like when I got to college, the swimming started first.
• 22:39
  Doesn't matter what the sport is, but for me, like, you had to be there a week early for swimming 'cause it's the only sport that goes, like, all year.
• 22:44
  And I showed up and didn't know anyone at the school, but after one day, I had 60 friends 'cause of practice. Yeah. And it's just like that for transferring, for whatever. Like, I don't care what it is. That's amazing.
• 22:54
  Football, whatever the roster is, 52 guys, that's amazing.
• 22:57
  And you have some structure, and you have people who can say, "This is what school," and little pods, and who are these, and who am I hanging out with, and who do I model myself after? That's all awesome.
• 23:04
  It's just the end result that's, like, often not really fucking great.
• 23:08
  And it's too bad, and I do hope it changes, and I know some of the scientists working on the CTE blood tests, which could, you know, eventually, hopefully cripple the whole thing. But I get that, you know.
• 23:21
  It, it pushes them. It's all great. But there's pros- Yeah... and cons to everything.
• 23:24
  Like, I tell my kids all the time, there's so many great things about swimming, and they swim for my old coach, and he's an amazing guy, and all he does is put out, like, good kids.
• 23:32
  But there's something really fucked up about winning and losing races by, like, hundredths of a second that's not great for you, and going back and forth all the time, and body issues. Yeah. For sure.
• 23:42
  It's all a thing, you know? Yeah. Same with, like, gymnastics. Yeah. Oh my God. Like, Jesus Christ, man. That was like...
• 23:48
  Did you read that article in The New York Times, I think it was last year, that came out about the, like, social media and gymnastics and, like, and dance, and, like, the gear that's marketed towards girls, and the moms- Oh, it's a fucking-...
• 23:58
  who have their girls model. Oh, God, I can't even. It's a fucking nightmare. But look, you know, look man, you can pick anything apart, right? Oh, yeah. Scouts is awesome. It's not even just Boy Scouts anymore.
• 24:07
  I think they just call it Scouts of America or whatever. There's incredible stuff about it, and horrific things. Yeah, definitely. Like, we can do this about church. We know everything. We can do that about anything.
• 24:16
  But- Yeah... I'm just... There's certain things that, like, you can kind of recover from, like broken legs and shit like that. The brain thing is just one where I'm like, you don't get that back. Yeah.
• 24:25
  Well, it was just interesting 'cause, like, again, back to my boomer dad. He was, like, watching the football game, and he's like, "I hope-"Paul doesn't feel bad that he's riding the bench so much.
• 24:33
  And I'm like, "Are you kidding? Look at him. He's having fun with his friends goofing around." Okay. But it was just kind of funny because he told me that in football, the coaches cuss out the kids.
• 24:41
  And because there's so much practice to football, and the kids are a little bit older, you drop them off, and you don't observe as much as you might with baseball.
• 24:49
  And I was like, man, if this was, like, a couple of years ago, I would've been so mad and scared and, and I don't know what, protective.
• 24:56
  And now, in a weird way, there was a little Portlandia sketch called Safe Bully where a school hired someone to be a bully at the school so you could get bullied safely.
• 25:05
  And then, like, maybe to a certain extent, a little bit of cussing out by your football- Sure... coaches is like Safe Bully, 'cause you're gonna get cussed out appropriately at some point. One hundred percent.
• 25:14
  It is a process. It's a step. There's an age where it's not appropriate, and then where it's like probably not, and then, sure, why not? And then it's, you know, all the handles are off.
• 25:22
  It doesn't matter what the sport is or the thing, you know? I mean, God knows there's, like, theater directors that are monsters as well.
• 25:29
  So one of my favorite things growing up I still love truly is, like, coaching of any kind, teaching of any kind, something I'm familiar with, like swimming or music or band or baseball or whatever.
• 25:40
  So again, but I know at least my limits with my own kids where I'm like, "I don't wanna ruin this for them. If they even seem interested, I will help. If it's needed, I will try to be cool about it.
• 25:49
  I will give them twice as many constructive compliments as I rag on them." I've tried to get better about that. But, you know, I remember [laughs] watching one of their swim practices, and they're so big.
• 26:00
  I don't have to watch any of this shit anymore. The practices at least, they think it's fun 'cause I've always kinda been there. But o- one of the coaches was like, "Hey, man, you could... You're here.
• 26:10
  Like, you could help coach. You could do this and this." And I said to him, "Why would I wanna... You, you're in charge of my kid for an hour. Why would I-" Hmm. "... absolve you of that?"
• 26:19
  [laughs] With that back, I mean, I'll coach other people's kids. Like, fuck yeah. Yeah. But no, like you were saying, the 20 minutes of homework is not enough. Like, I need...
• 26:25
  At their baseball practice last night, this wonderful family coach, he's, like, a Marine accountant, and he's so positive and such a good person and coach and constructive.
• 26:35
  But he's also a Marine like so many of the parents around here, and there's nothing better than, you know, the kids are fucking around, like, a little bit, sitting in my chair, just kinda watching, and then I'm like, "Oh, they're running laps," and I don't have anything to do with this.
• 26:48
  Someone else is like, "Stop fucking around-" Yeah... "and do your thing." I'm like, that is worth all of the driving is someone else- Yeah... being like, "Stop being a dipshit. Go run."
• 26:57
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• 27:35
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• 27:42
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• 27:58
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• 28:05
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• 28:24
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• 28:42
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• 28:52
  [upbeat music] Oh, you can always tell which kid is the coach's kid by whichever kid is getting yelled at the most.
• 28:58
  My husband is gonna coach tennis, which is hilarious because he has as much experience coaching tennis as my son has playing tennis. But he was promised that he won't have to coach his own son. Like, he can coach...
• 29:08
  The kids who are really good at tennis, so he doesn't have to actually do anything. So I don't have any dreams of my kids getting into sports.
• 29:14
  I would be surprised if my older kid played any sport, like, on a team in high school, like club sports for sure. Sure.
• 29:19
  And the younger kid, he has such a brain for stats that I don't typically think ahead like this, but I'm like, you know, some kind of s- like sports analytics thing where he- Does he wanna join my fantasy baseball league?
• 29:29
  'Cause I'll kick somebody out. He would love to. They are so into March Madness right now and the brackets, and I had a big punishment for my younger one 'cause he spilled milk. There's context around this.
• 29:39
  I'm not just a mean lady who gets mad at kid for spilling milk. He spilled it in a really stupid way, and he spilled it on my brackets. And I was like, "I'm just throwing it away."
• 29:48
  And he said, "Well, you could dry it off." I was like, "No, it's milk. It's gonna stink. I'm out. I'm out of the bracket." And, and that's what we fight and- As if it's like fucking papyrus from the 1900s. It's gone.
• 29:58
  Library of Alexandria. Yeah. Sorry, Brent. We'll never know. Exactly. I was like, "All right, kids. We'll, we'll do brackets, whatever."
• 30:03
  And I used to work and sort of run the ESPN Fantasy Sports stuff a, a thousand years ago.
• 30:08
  And I went into the tournament challenge thing that they've got 'cause I'm still kind of a homer for it, and, you know, we're up to 25 million brackets entered, and they've got this really cool perfect bracket thing now where they run all the math in the background.
• 30:19
  It's like this is how many are left, this is how many are at risk right now with the games that are on the floor, and all this stuff, and it's great.
• 30:25
  And we kept watching it, and so I just had made, like, a 10 seconds automatic pick bracket and change a couple things for each of my kids.Four days into this thing, my oldest, his bracket, he didn't even know it existed until I printed it out for him, was ranked 1,000 out of 24 million.
• 30:43
  And- Oh my God... he's going to school, "I got one of the top brackets in the world." I'm like, "Do you?" Yeah. "Sure." And just, again, high on his own supply. He's a 12-and-a-half-year-old boy, but not anymore.
• 30:54
  He got throttled. He was like, "Why didn't you pick Duke?" 'Cause fuck Duke. Sorry- Yeah... I'm not gonna do that. I picked Duke because the way the world is.
• 31:00
  I was like, I'm gonna pick every team that I would root against because that is how kind of things are. Yeah. I made a mistake. I picked Yale in one case 'cause they were like a...
• 31:10
  You know, had an upset last year and, anyway, shouldn't do that. Can we go back to the toxic, sort of the cussing thing for... 'Cause I just- Yeah... remembered something really specific.
• 31:18
  So I remembered it for two reasons. One, I think I told you we've been cleaning out our attic, and I found a huge box of all my old trophies. Right. Which of course I'm still holding on to. A whole different thing.
• 31:29
  My dad'd say, "High school hero, college zero." It's fine. We- we can dig into that later. And it made me think of you were talking about the cussing and what age. So Little League, I was probably 10-ish.
• 31:41
  It was before I became, like, a man and looked like this at 11. So that, it's gotta be, like, 10-ish. And I had this coach, and I don't remember his name, and he was a real hardass, but wasn't military. Just, like, real
• 31:55
  slightly older than Boomer, but not Greatest Generation. And his kid was on the team from what I remember, and this guy was just, like, a asshole to 10-year-olds.
• 32:06
  And just like football, baseball, you get some of the old salted guys who are mad they didn't make it or this, and it's their stuff and it's baseball. But he was so mean that...
• 32:17
  And this is kinda surprising to me for a thousand other reasons, and I'm- I'm sure I'm misremembering some part of this, but I spoke with a friend about it a few years ago. He was so mean, and he was yelling at me
• 32:30
  so much. Again, we're 9 and 10, this Little League field, idyllic little thing. While I was in center field, then my dad stopped the game and took me off the field and said, "He's out." Wow. "We're not doing it anymore."
• 32:42
  Wow. And I'm surprised that happened, but also, again, I'm sure I'm misremembering what the guy was saying, I was 10 or whatever, but for that f- to have instigated that action, it must have been pretty bad.
• 32:55
  And I do think to myself now, like, at 10, like, there's no version of me... And I mean, not, like, cussing at the kids in practice or, like, in the dugout close talk.
• 33:05
  Like, I was in center field and he's yelling at me from the dugout, like, horrific things. Like, I probably wouldn't pull my kid out. I would probably just, like, beat the shit out of this guy.
• 33:14
  It probably wouldn't be great. I would probably start saying horrible things back to him in front of everyone. Like, that I'm totally not okay with. What is it about baseball in particular?
• 33:23
  Like, we talk about football, you know, and concussions, and we'd even get into, like, hockey and lacrosse culture, but- Gotcha... why is baseball so full of heartbreak?
• 33:31
  It's just funny 'cause, like, I talked to some friends of mine, even my dad, and I talked to male friends of mine, and they all have these really acute memories of sobbing after a baseball game, after a hard loss and, you know, like, this heartbreak.
• 33:44
  I think it's a little different than... Soccer and hockey are so similar besides, you know, sort of the violence side of it. And I love hockey, I love soccer. Again, there's things to love about football.
• 33:53
  I even played... I mean, speaking of horror show, when I quit swimming and baseball in college in my last year, I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna be a free agent and do nothing and hang out and party," and then I joined rugby.
• 34:02
  So if I ever, like, dim out during a conversation, it's 'cause of rugby. And then on the other spectrum you've got your swimming or your track or whatever it might be, or ice skating by yourself, right?
• 34:11
  Without a partner. Baseball's such a weird hybrid for it is a team thing, but when you get up to bat or you're pitching, really those two situations, you are responsible for the whole game and the whole team,
• 34:25
  and if you drop a ball you are responsible. You know, it's different than like I missed a pass. Great, there's gonna be another pass in one second. Yeah.
• 34:31
  But the odds of a ball getting hit to you are so low, and because there's only three outs that you need to get, but at the same time those can take so long and be so hard to get, and the opportunity for an easy one, the math of it all I think is part of that where you're just like, "I'm very young to be put on the spot," basically.
• 34:46
  Yeah, probably. 'Cause that's why I think my son likes volleyball is that there are so many...
• 34:51
  Especially as they get better, there's so many opportunities to contribute, and it moves so fast and you can score- Over and over and over... yeah. Yeah.
• 34:57
  In my son's baseball championship game last year, and, you know, I think he got a hit or he got a walk, so you're like, "Okay, he did add something." Sure. But my dad, again, Boomer, very Mr. Baseball, Mr.
• 35:08
  Field of Dreams, he was like, "I just hope the game doesn't all come down to Paul and he's not the reason why they lose." This fifth inning, you know? Like- He said that loud and Paul was what, 11? Yeah.
• 35:20
  I mean, Paul didn't hear it but I heard it, and I was like, "Dad, that is such a weird way to think," 'cause I was like, "What if that was some other kid?
• 35:25
  Would you feel relieved if that was, like, all came down to some other kid?" And if it did happen to Paul, so what? We would move past it, you know?
• 35:33
  It's such an odd way of instead of thinking, "I hope they win and I hope he enjoys the fun of celebrating," which he did, and that was a whole other feeling for me as someone who is not a competitive child to feel this sense of...
• 35:45
  I don't know if this is the right word. This is a real, gonna take a real left turn. I know in the Polly community there's a phrase called compersion. I knew we were fucking going here.
• 35:53
  [laughs] Well, s- speaking of team sports. But, like, when you feel pleasure for someone else's enjoyment and- Sure...
• 36:00
  when I saw them all throw their mitts up in the air and run out to the fence and hop on the fe- I was like, I haven't really felt this much pleasure for someone un- since I last saw this girl win bingo a couple years ago at school and she won the American Girl doll.
• 36:12
  And I was like, wow, her.
• 36:13
  But the coming back to your dad thing, again, as someone who took until six months ago, like, losing at anything extremely personally and, like, that it was live or die and I had to beat this person and so much of my self-confidence relied on it, but is now transitioned into, again, watching my kids do things and, like you said, whether they make a middle school team or a high school team or whatever it is, or not get picked for the musical, whatever, they're starting to careRight?
• 36:40
  Which they didn't care if they get slaughtered- No... when they're nine. They didn't give a shit. They were just having a great time and like spitting sunflower seeds. I have really- Oh, yeah...
• 36:46
  tried to intentionally say, so like when one of them says, "I wanna get this time," or, "I hope I get two hits today," I'm like, "That's awesome for you, man.
• 36:54
  I will pay attention to it if you want me to pay attention to something, but I am not gonna be the guy," 'cause I could very easily be the guy who's like, "Why didn't you get two hits today?"
• 37:05
  But it's so interesting to see. And again, fucking boomers, sorry for your dad, but fucking boomers, like it's amazing to be that old and in the generation below your kids and still be holding onto...
• 37:17
  Like, that is not about Paul, that's about him, right? I mean, I, I goof around with him and I'm like, "You can't say I didn't give you some good grandsons."
• 37:25
  And of course they'd be good no matter what they did or what they looked like, but in terms of what he needs. Like, having a little grandson who says, "Will you play catch in the backyard with me?" You know.
• 37:34
  We're both lucky that we have kids who have opportunities to be other people besides athletes. And like where I live, you can do fencing. You know, you can do- Yeah, awesome... like this live action role play game.
• 37:44
  Like, you can do a million different things and, you know, I know there's other parts of the country where this is like all you have, you know? And if you aren't a star, like what are you gonna be?
• 37:53
  And so that's that sense of like relief and guilt, you know, that I'm glad they get to be this like mainstream kid, you know? And it, it was only through good luck. And we had this weird experience last year.
• 38:05
  I p- I wrote about this on my website. There's this dad who is kind of a drunk and weird guy, and I didn't go to my younger son's, a lot of his baseball games and practices due to just not wanting to, honestly.
• 38:18
  And this guy asked my s- husband, this coach, if we were getting divorced because that was the only reason why he could imagine why I didn't come to the games. So- He actually asked that question?
• 38:30
  Yeah, he said, "You splitting up?" Like, "Where's Claire been?" So anyway, this dad told my dad actually that he wished my son, James, was his son because James has this hustle, and that was not a compliment to me.
• 38:44
  Like I said, this hustle thing is like inborn. You know, it's either a kid wants to grind it out or does not. And I was like, "Don't say that about your own kid." No. "Your kid is your kid, and kids don't wanna hustle."
• 38:55
  It's so fucking dark. Yeah, exactly. I was like, "First of all, don't associate yourself with my kid, and enjoy your kid. Enjoy the fact that your kid wants to play baseball with you, period." If I'm watching...
• 39:09
  So they were asking about good sports movies, and now you got Remember the Titans. Amazing. Like, all these different ones, right?
• 39:15
  Miracle is really great, and there's a moment where the coach is like, "We're running sprints for the rest of the night," right? But these kids are like 17, you know? And this is very much what they've signed up for.
• 39:29
  [laughs] Like, they have worked so hard to get to the Olympic team to do this and this. That's the deal, you know? But to me, and again, like, this is fighting some real
• 39:37
  instincts in me, not to say like I'm a monster, but like, I could be like a light monster, is, you know, when we're out having a catch last night and we're running back and forth instead of just throwing him ground balls, I'm throwing him to the side, and he's running back and he's like, "I'm tired."
• 39:49
  But this kid is also, like, at his happiest when he is basically a golden retriever, and I know that about him, and so what I'm trying to do is walk the line of embracing that.
• 39:58
  And he's fallen on the ground and doing all that and having fun. Instead of jumping over that line and being like, "Why aren't you going faster? Let's do 20 more. You fucked that one up,"
• 40:09
  which is really prevalent, and it's not great. And like you said, "I wish he was my son," is like, there's so much going on underneath there, and I just... I... Look, man, therapy's great.
• 40:20
  My kids are already gonna go to therapy. I'm trying not to add to that fucking list. It can be the same in music or theater or whatever. Yeah.
• 40:26
  And, but like you're saying, the mainstream thing, like it's part of why, like, I push and, and I'm glad I had, like, music and not just sports where it can be just about the art and enjoy.
• 40:34
  But it's why I also push, like, Dungeons and Dragons. Like, it costs nothing. It's mostly offline if you want it to. It's like camaraderie and this and this. There's no stakes. Yeah. You know?
• 40:44
  There, there's gotta be stuff like that, man. Yeah. You know, it's funny. When we were in Mexico City we saw a Lucha Libre match, and I mean, it's pro wrestling.
• 40:54
  Have you ever been to like a pro wrestling match- Oh, fuck yeah... in real life? Yeah. And, uh, so it's so campy. Like, the part of me that loves, like, Drag Race, I'm like- Yeah...
• 41:01
  "Oh, this is so close to just being super gay." So close. Yeah. And, you know, you choose the bad guy or the good guy, but they're all wearing sparkles and, you know, and parading around.
• 41:12
  It was just so funny because my younger son was so into it and booing and thumbs down and, and my older kid was like, "I'm just kind of embarrassed of James right now" 'cause of like how into it he was.
• 41:24
  But I was like, there's literally an entire stadium of people. And not only that, but in Mexico City I guess it's like very normal, that's your therapy. That you take- Sure...
• 41:32
  whatever bullshit you've had all week and then you throw it out and you- Yeah... yell, scream. But I, having a younger brother, I also was like, I, I understand.
• 41:41
  Your brother is there to embarrass you, even if he's actually being the most mainstream kid. So brother- Yeah... where James is cheering for the good guys and then Paul, you know, was the cheering for the bad guys.
• 41:51
  God, that is like printed out of a fucking book. I know. And I was cheering for the bad guys too 'cause I just thought they were like funnier.
• 41:57
  But anyway, going back to coaching, it's just interesting the different ways you can be a good coach 'cause part of what was interesting or just the universe feeling very inherently fair was that the year before Paul's championship season last year, his team lost every single game, I wanna say.
• 42:12
  So I was like, sometimes the world works out, you know?
• 42:14
  But he had a coach who was very positive and at one point the kids, I think, were beating a team and, you know, like hassling them a little bit and their coach was like, "Stop it. Shut up." Like, "Stop being like that."
• 42:24
  And then for football this last year, what I really liked about his football coach is how well he communicated.
• 42:30
  Like, after every single practice sent out these, like, bullets of here's what we're doing, here's what's coming up, here's what you gotta get.
• 42:37
  Like, for some reason once a week the kids got fed after Thursday practices and they didn't clean up, and the coach was like, "If they don't clean up, next time we're not doing this anymore."And I was like, this is like half of it, honestly, is just feeling- Oh, yeah...
• 42:49
  this guy is taking the time to communicate with us clearly.
• 42:51
  But my friend had a kid who quit baseball 'cause the coach was such a hardass and, you know, I've seen this coach in action, and you hate even playing him because he's yelling at his own kids so hard that it just makes you cringe, you know?
• 43:03
  So anyway, it is interesting and sweet to see, like, good coaches in action who don't seem to be, like, reliving their own bullshit, you know? 1,000%.
• 43:13
  They're clearly doing it for, like, the objective, obviously subjective in a lot of ways, but, like, objective love of the game and the love of, like, youth
• 43:23
  s- activity, even not sports, and coaching and these children growing up, and they're making, like, $17,000 to do this. They're probably a math teacher or someone who's like, "Does someone know how to coach football?"
• 43:34
  Right? Uh-huh. Can we get someone to do this?
• 43:36
  And you either get the guys that are assholes and are, like, still holding onto something, and they ruin it for all the kids, or someone else, and they're involved in some way.
• 43:43
  And I fully agree with you, and I would fully be the coach who's sending out the emails.
• 43:48
  This is what we're working on as people, and I want them to be young citizens first, and if they don't clean up this and this, and, like, I'm just, like, a- again, trying to have more of the empathy of...
• 43:57
  Not for the asshole coaches, but if they do go above and beyond it all, to be like, they legitimately have no reason to go above and beyond. This is in their off time. This is purely- No... for love of the game.
• 44:05
  This is this and this, and then I take it out on my kids, so. I told you this over text, but this story just made me laugh so hard.
• 44:11
  At the boys' volleyball game, I was sitting next to a dad who, like, does a lot of basketball coaching. He coached the girls' seventh grade basketball team.
• 44:19
  They were so dominant, and they lost, like a heartbreaker, the championship, and they were all crying. And I was like, "You guys earned those tears, honestly."
• 44:26
  But we watched a boy jump away from a slam that came his way, and he said, "That kid, I coached him in basketball, and he clearly did not wanna be playing. I haven't seen a kid not wanna play- Mm-hmm... less."
• 44:37
  And he talked about [laughs] how this kid, part of his, his approach to playing basketball was to play with his hands in his pockets.
• 44:44
  And the kid's dad kept yelling on the sidelines to, "Take your hands out of your pockets." And like- Which is making it so much worse. Oh, it made me laugh so hard 'cause it's so identifiable. Yeah.
• 44:53
  Like, my kid Paul loves to chat on the sidelines and shit, chat and goof around, you know. But the fact that- Mm-hmm...
• 44:59
  this dad was saying this with a sense of humor, you know, and wasn't lamenting that this kid was a loser or, you know, like- Yeah... value add nothing, you know, I just found it so charming. Like, he sees all these kids.
• 45:11
  He appreciates all these kids for all that they have to offer. Like, what, is he gonna be a pro athlete? No, of course not.
• 45:17
  Make this time nice for them, and hopefully they've learned some shit, and maybe they'll win something, but, like, they're so young.
• 45:24
  I wanna talk a little bit about travel sports, which my kids, again, are not into, and this is, uh, purely selfish.
• 45:29
  And to anyone listening, I think it's very valid to choose your kids' sports based on what you wanna deal with. Like, we got out of soccer 'cause... No, don't be mad at me. I just don't care about soccer.
• 45:37
  And I was like, "I don't wanna stand around on Sundays." Whatever. Fine. All right.
• 45:40
  A lot of the kids in my son's world do travel baseball, and he's not an elite or interested enough to play travel, but, like, his friend is, and he kind of got lightly recruited to try out.
• 45:52
  And my girlfriend, who is a witch, on the one hand was like, "Oh, shit, I don't wanna do travel," but also it's her kid.
• 45:59
  So she let him try out, and he didn't make it, and he was sobbing in his bed, and she had these, you know, competing feelings of being relieved that he didn't make travel and then heartbroken for him and then, against her better judgment, was emailing the coach about what can he work on, you know?
• 46:15
  And I think she was hoping he would say, "Sleep more, eat more, smile." And he was like, "Well, you could get a, you know, a speed timer and have him improve his running to first base, and he could do this and that."
• 46:26
  Anyway, all this is to say is I interviewed for my newsletter a couple years ago this woman, Linda Flanagan.
• 46:32
  She wrote a book called Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids' Sports, and it's really interesting.
• 46:38
  And one of the main takeaways that I got from that book is that parents whose kids did very elite high school sports and lowers said that in the end it didn't matter, that they kinda wished they had put in less time and effort.
• 46:49
  The parents wished they'd put in less time and effort? Yeah. They were like, "That was not necessary." The nature of... So let's do swimming, for example.
• 46:56
  It's sort of been our predominant thing for the past few months 'cause it's winter.
• 47:01
  So generally runs, like, m- mid-fall to early spring, and then depending how you're doing, like, you can keep going, like championships, whatever you qualify for. So we don't have a big fancy pool in town.
• 47:13
  There's a bunch of smaller ones, but it's not really the capacity to hold, like, a meet of a few hundred kids. Fine. It's annoying for a thousand reasons, but it's fine. So we're going to... Is it a travel?
• 47:25
  Sure, but it's out of necessity 'cause you can't just... You know, these things cost a lot. So we're going to Richmond, just under an hour. Sometimes a Hampton one, 25 minutes, something like that.
• 47:36
  And there's meets, like, every, I would say two or three weeks, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. And you don't have to do them all. You do need to do some. The kids wanna do it 'cause it's a social thing. But
• 47:49
  as much as I enjoy watching them see maybe the fruits of their labor, I've made clear to them that...
• 47:56
  And I'm always really annoying about this, and I yell at the grandmas about it and everyone, which is we got a whole machine going here. If we commit to this, I am not getting any chores done this weekend.
• 48:05
  We're not doing any mom stuff. There are things we have to say no to 'cause we are going to this. Well- And if it's Richmond, still an hour.
• 48:12
  Like, we'll go back and forth or whatever, and there's different sessions, but it's a lot of time. And we're very proud of you.
• 48:17
  We're happy to support you, but you have to understand, like, we cannot do them all is the point. Yeah.
• 48:22
  But then there's also things like objectively, subjectively, there's this one place where they took a, an old mall, which more places truly need to do this. They turned part of it into a pool, into a competitive pool.
• 48:35
  Oh. Great reuse of it. Now they're doing apartments in different places and all this. Awesome. So glad they did that. It is such a shitty experience for parents 'cause it's basically a basement. Yeah.
• 48:44
  And we did it twice, and my kids will be like, "Hey, how come my friends are going to this meet?" I'm like, "I'm not going. I'm not doing."Like I'm not driving an hour to-- It's terrible.
• 48:52
  The other one's like the Taj Mahal compared to this.
• 48:53
  But it's a lot and again, like I've kind of set my mind on that 'cause it's logistically out of necessity but same thing when it comes to like should they try out for this?
• 49:03
  I think the travel baseball team's called like the Revolution 'cause we're in Williamsberg, whatever. It's just a can of worms. Yeah. Are my kids gonna make it? Probably not. Which is, like you said, good and bad.
• 49:13
  Not bad. Yeah. Like good and whatever. No, there's, there's trade-offs. Like- But- Yeah...
• 49:17
  there are trade-offs and again, like m- my middle girl, she stopped swimming for a while, just didn't wanna do it, whatever, great. She starts doing the ninja thing.
• 49:24
  Sh- she's only had two competitions in her whole existence the past like year and a half, and she had one on a Saturday, and the boys were like, "We're gonna go, but we're kind of, you know, lollygagging going out the door."
• 49:35
  And I'm like, "Mother, she has come to every one of your dumb swim meets and watches every practice and like sorta plays on the playground but is also like, 'I wanna watch Oliver bat.'"
• 49:42
  I'm like, "You're going with pompoms on." One, 'cause that's what we do. Two, it's right down the street. And three, like
• 49:50
  in a few years you're all gonna be doing so much different shit, we're not gonna be able to all go to each other's things. But know that, yeah, you're not going to your friend's house today, we're going to cheer for her.
• 49:57
  Yeah. 'Cause some of it is zero sum. So I don't know, that's my way of contextualizing do we do travel.
• 50:04
  I think on the whole societal-wise, it's a nightmare because it takes so many kids out of it, and talented kids, but also, I don't know, I just sometimes need Sundays where I'm not.
• 50:14
  I mean, you just brought up like also the kinda stuff around sports too.
• 50:18
  My husband was kind of interested in the kids maybe getting into hockey w- 'cause he was into hockey a little bit and then the pandemic happened and they were like that doesn't matter.
• 50:25
  And I also was like, I was about hockey the way I was about football where I was like, you wanna do that, you own that.
• 50:30
  But like the household management that ends up coming down on you with certain sports, and I'm kind of amazed that you have three vegetarian kids because there's no meal planning and Nick home- cooked meals with these volleyball matches that we have now that are at like 5, 6 and 7.
• 50:46
  That's what fast food was invented for was for, you know, going out after a game. Like that's such a dumb little thing, but yeah, you can't make dinner and also go to various, you know- Oh, fuck no.
• 50:57
  And a lot of times I don't. B- by the way, either one of the grandmas helps with it, but usually honestly they're helping with the driving 'cause I truly cannot be in three places at once.
• 51:05
  And again, so much of Dana's work is three hours behind, like it's still 2:00 where her people are. But we do a ton of leftovers. Oh. Like I will both
• 51:15
  make things that will last, but also we do a lot of just deconstructed share plates, and deconstruct in the sense of like I'm just pulling shit out of the fridge.
• 51:22
  I'm putting 12 things on the table, and we buy a lot of the same stuff, a lot of whatever packaged stuff. I just go, "This is dinner." It's not- Yeah...
• 51:29
  a m- like a meal like you would prefer or some of your kids would like. Where do you see that I have time for that? I'm sorry. Yeah. It's like when they're like, "Okay, great. We went to our meet all weekend, 36 hours.
• 51:39
  How come I don't have clean pants?" I'm like, "I don't know. Why don't you think about that for a minute?" Oh, God. "When would you have liked me to have done that?"
• 51:45
  The football in particular, the accessories with football, like between the helmet and the baby mouth guard and the pads and then the long jersey and the pants, and the pants for some reason come with this long shoestring drawstring thing, and then the long socks.
• 51:59
  This is what's so great about swimming, Speedo. Which they forget. I'm like, "What is in your fucking bag?" Here is a big difference between America and other countries.
• 52:07
  When we were in Mexico, my son brought goggles to swim in the hotel pool and he left them behind one day, and we asked lost and found if they had them and it was like getting a hostage out of Iran, basically, to get these goggles back.
• 52:19
  I had to provide an ID and sign and describe these goggles. Wow. Meanwhile, at my parents' golf club pool, there's like a bucket full of left behind goggles that- Oh, yeah... kids leave behind.
• 52:30
  And I was like, wow, we are a sh- shitty country with... I mean, not for long 'cause your goggles are gonna cost $40 now. I was like, oh, this is a country people, like, value their belongings.
• 52:39
  Like, what an amazing- So weird. Yeah. Instead of, "I need a new one of these." Why do you... Why?
• 52:43
  You have a little note here about how about your own sports participation and/or extracurriculars, and you said, "Claire's phasing out guitar classes soon since sports will be too much."
• 52:53
  Are you saying you're sacrificing your guitar stuff because their things are gonna be too much? Yeah. And how do you feel about that?
• 53:00
  I mean, you know, sacrifice makes it sound like it's, like, a real, l- like I'm giving up my sleep. But I do honestly believe, like, every one of these little hobbies that we can hold onto, like, matters.
• 53:11
  Well, as I've gotten older, I have identified the little things I can do for myself, and they can be quite seasonal.
• 53:19
  And, like, in the summer, I decided a couple years ago I'm gonna go to the driving range once a week and take a couple golf lessons to get a little bit better, and I have played golf with my kids and my dad, speaking of, like, making good grandkids.
• 53:32
  And so that all kinda comes together, right?
• 53:34
  Like, we can play golf together and enjoy it and sort of know functionally what to do, and then meanwhile my son also plays guitar, so we can kind of sometimes bond where I can say, "Oh, that sounds like you've come along."
• 53:45
  And in a certain way, it's good to take breaks from things. Like, I love guitar and that i- is very fun for me, and we're working on the White Album right now. Mm. So it was fun seeing Blackbird and Julia last night.
• 53:55
  But, you know, also there's a little pain in the ass element of getting out downtown at night.
• 53:59
  But anyway, yeah, it gets better, but it really is, when you are a newer parent and your kids' sports schedule, it truly comes landing on your head.
• 54:07
  And when your kids are younger, I think, and you feel compelled to stay on there and be there in case of an emergency or disaster or emotional disaster, there is so much more boredom and standing around, and it gets so much better when the competition is more fun to watch or you can simply drop them off and not have to worry about it, or you can just sit in your car.
• 54:26
  So it's fine. I don't... I'm not... I've made my peace with it. This is fine, dog sitting in the fire, you know? It's all right. And volleyball I do enjoy watching. I played volleyball. I can appreciate.
• 54:37
  It's really cool to see the kids get better at it. So, you know.
• 54:40
  I was just telling my brother, who doesn't have kids, 'cause he and his husband ha- had decided not to have kids, and I said, "You know, having kids really sucks if you're someone who hates doing things that you don't wanna do."
• 54:51
  Yeah. So when the things you don't wanna do get marginally better, you're like, "Oh my God, this is great. This is amazing." It really does. Like you said, that first year kid pitch isSo brutal.
• 55:01
  It's so fucking brutal, and baseball really is, like, my favorite game, and I'm the guy who's like, "Even if nothing's happening, so much is happening in the brains and running things." It's brutal. So you're right.
• 55:10
  When it gets better, you're like, "Oh, this is fun. This is fun." Yeah. But I just wanna make sure you've still got something for you. Yeah.
• 55:19
  Oh, and the reason I got back into golf is because I took the kids to the batting cages.
• 55:23
  Again, this is, like, a new level of leveling up where I guess on another planet you could judge me for not observing while my kid has a ball hurled towards his head at 40 miles an hour, but I was like, "He has a helmet on," and there's some 13-year-old observing the cages.
• 55:38
  But I went and hit balls, like, while they were hitting balls, you know? And I was like, "Oh, you know what? This is, like, good. This feels nice.
• 55:44
  I'm not just sitting here waiting for them, watching them swing and miss over and over again so I can pump 50 more dollars into the machine." So, you know...
• 55:51
  And another thing, this is not related at all, but, like, I have come to appreciate playing catch with my kids has been good for my reflexes. Mm-hmm.
• 55:58
  There have been so many times where, like, something has fallen and I've caught it, and I'm like, "This is 'cause of them and their stupid baseball that I can- Yeah... you know, nab this."
• 56:06
  But yeah, what have you had to say no to 'cause of your kids' sports or you are just happy to be done?
• 56:10
  I have this weird thing where I've realized, again, we had three under three for a while, and then that just continued the way it continued, and I was in, like, really good shape for a lot of that pre-COVID.
• 56:22
  And now I am... I'm not, and it's a big part of the reason is I have a completely different job than I did before.
• 56:30
  I was mostly doing screenwriting and philanthropic and, like, investing stuff before, which was like, yeah, you can spend three hours at the gym thinking about the pages you're gonna write, and you get two emails a week, which is a very different thing now, and that's great, and I'm happy about that.
• 56:43
  So I'm trying to make more time for just that, 'cause I do still, like, really enjoy being in really good shape. There's other things, like I try to have little projects. I've had...
• 56:53
  You know, I try to make a little 20-minute family video comprised of all the video data I take from every year. I think I'm, like, six years behind on that. Right.
• 57:01
  Because it's just like, when do I get a day to just do that? It's not something I'm interested in doing in five-minute chunks necessarily. Yeah. I like to say, like, I played video games. I played, like, NHL '95.
• 57:12
  You know, I don't have time for this shit. Now they're all so complicated. I have a game that just came out that I love, Civilization. The seventh one just came out, so excited, haven't touched it.
• 57:21
  Do you game with your kids? No, we don't do a lot of screen stuff. Like, sometimes I'll challenge them in Mario Kart, but again, like, I'm a fucking hypocrite about it, you know?
• 57:29
  Well- I would like to, and, like, I showed them Civilization, and it's one of those games where you- you're like, "I'll play for five minutes," at 8:00, and you look up at 4:00 in the morning, and that's fun.
• 57:37
  There's definitely worse ways to go than are you achieving the cultural goals- Uh-huh... in this game. But yeah, there's always...
• 57:42
  I mean, I often have the Alexander Hamilton, like, "Why do you write like you're running out of time" kind of thing, 'cause I have so many things I feel like I should be doing every day that I don't get to, things I do actually get to, and then things, like, I want to get to, which are always at the bottom of the list.
• 57:57
  But yeah, I don't know. So I would guess, like, everything, but I, like you, I'm increasingly okay with more of it. Real big picture question, what do you think is the point of kids' sports? Like, why are we doing this?
• 58:07
  To me, and I'm extremely... This is such a rare case. Like, again, they are swimming for my coach, who happened to be not the hardest ass coach. Every 15 years there's, like, an Olympian. Puts out good kids.
• 58:24
  He holds them responsible. They're great. He makes not just, like, good individual kids, but, like, good teammates. I'm really invested in that as long as they wanna do it, only because...
• 58:34
  not only because, but in a big part because I know, like, they're getting, like, a lot of life lesson kinda stuff out there. He's like, "You're gonna cheer for your team. You know, you're gonna do this.
• 58:44
  We're gonna do the fun stuff and all that."
• 58:46
  It's also a little bit like see what you're made of at every stage and how your body's changing and are you willing to rise to the occasion, but also little things where I like them to investigate themselves, you know?
• 58:57
  So I don't know. I feel like you can get a lot of that stuff out of it. Of course, again, can also be toxic. But- Well-... I don't know. All the same stuff, like why go out for the musical? Maybe it'll be fun.
• 59:08
  Maybe there's a cute girl or a cute guy or whatever, or maybe you actually like to sing after all these years of blasting music at home. Like, I don't know. Go see. It flies by.
• 59:17
  And for how long do any of us, and especially kids, get the "don't be afraid to make a mistake"? 'Cause it ends pretty quickly. Yeah. And then everyone's, "Sorry, you can't go to college now."
• 59:30
  Well, especially having us live through...
• 59:32
  had kids through COVID, you know, and I felt this way about Major League Baseball even, where you're like, well, you don't really miss it till it's gone, until you can't do it, even if you lose every single game, just the fact that you can't share a bat, you know?
• 59:45
  Nothing is more pathetic than watching a bunch of kids play basketball with masks on, you know? Like, it is... I mean, there are much more pathetic things than that, but yeah.
• 59:53
  I also laugh 'cause there's a TV show, I don't think it's on anymore, but AP Bio, and I didn't really watch it, but I remember there was a gym teacher who said, "We tire out the boys."
• 1:00:02
  That was his job, and I was like, "Don't you understand?" I mean, I've said to many parents a few times, like, the coaches will do relays at the end, or they'll make them run rinse sprints and, like, make it competitive.
• 1:00:11
  I'm like, "They're doing that for us." Yeah. They're fully... The kids don't quite realize what is happening. I wanna say one more thing that I thought this was just really interesting.
• 1:00:19
  I volunteer at the kids' newspaper club 'cause I know my lane and I know where I shine, and I mostly, I feel like, clean up, you know. And sometimes I'll say, "What do you need?" So I don't...
• 1:00:28
  so we're not bothering the teacher.
• 1:00:29
  But we had a woman come in who used to teach gym at the school, and she was interviewed because she made the decision for the kids to wear their gym uniforms to school on gym days instead of changing into their gym uniforms.
• 1:00:40
  So they interviewed her. But she happened to have three kids who were all college athletes and one who actually briefly played for the NFL.
• 1:00:47
  And so after the kids were done interviewing her, I said, "You know, what advice do you have for parents of student athletes?" And she said, "Don't have them specialize, at least up until high school." Hmm.
• 1:00:57
  "Like, let them play as much as they want different sports." And I agree with that.
• 1:01:00
  I interviewed a guy, his name is Jerry Brooks, who's a principal.And they talked about not having your kids put all their eggs in one basket, because if travel baseball is all they have and then they hurt themselves or they decide they don't like it anymore, and all of their friends are wrapped up in this one activity, like you're SOL.
• 1:01:17
  I know I say that, of course, again, selfishly because I don't wanna do travel sports myself.
• 1:01:22
  But, you know, I think for parents out there who might be worrying, like, "Am I not giving my kid all the opportunity in the world by not paying for baseball camp and s- you know, going to Cooperstown for a week and all of that stuff?"
• 1:01:34
  They'll probably be okay. 100%. And also, unfortunately, like so many kids' futures and parents' futures are tied up, "Is my kid gonna get a scholarship for this?" Yeah.
• 1:01:46
  Because of the way this place works or doesn't work. Yes. Which is a shit show, so you feel all these pressures to do it. 'Cause immediately you're like, "What can she do with this that will help on this and this?"
• 1:01:56
  And it's like, what the fuck are we doing? Yeah. Not fucking great. So yeah, both of those things are d- what the fuck is she gonna do, a n- ninja? She might be a professional ninja. Sure. You don't know.
• 1:02:07
  Great, put him on j- have fun. Swing around. Yeah. Who cares? She's swinging from the rooftop. She eats shit so hard, like 30 times a class. That's gotta be pretty good for something, and then she has to get back up.
• 1:02:18
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