Episode 2.8 Girldad Nation Podcast Interview

Solo But Not Alone - Mathew Bradley

When he lost his wife, Marci, to cancer in 2018, Matt was left to navigate raising his one-year-old daughter, Blair, on his own. Matt reached out to other dads dealing with loss, and in 2021 he launched Solo Dad Podcast. 

Check out the rest of the interview and all things great about being a father to daughter at 

https://www.audible.com/pd/Girl-Dad-Nation-Podcast/B09PK4PKDB

Transcript

Matt: 0:32

Welcome to a very special episode of the Solo Dad Podcast. In this episode, you're going to hear me being interviewed on the Girl Dad Nation podcast, hosted by Matthew Creckler. As always, enjoy the conversation.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00

Now, I I want to switch gears a little bit and just kind of talk about your story more. Yeah, you you have a podcast called the Solo Dad Podcast. And um, you're widowed. And yeah, I I just would like to open it up to you um to have the floor and just talk about kind of your journey.

Matt: 1:19

Sure, man. I appreciate it. Well, first, you know, as a kind of the overlap is being a father of two daughters. And those are the two children I have. And they are 18 and four, different moms. And so uh I can usually do this pretty quick. So the reader's digest version is I met my wife, Marcy, in 2013. We dated for about two years. We're old. Uh we were in our 30s, mid-30s, some of us maybe in our late 30s, but anyway. Uh, we dated for about two years and knew that this was something we really wanted to continue on and take it to the next level or whatever the right word would be. So got engaged, got married. Uh, we were living in the West Loop of the city of Chicago, moved out to the burbs, uh, had Blair in August of 2017. I think do my yeah, I got my years right. Yep. 2017. So we were married in 16. And then unfortunately, 90 days after Blair was born, Marcy was diagnosed with stage four colorectal cancer. So um that led to a cancer journey. Uh and unfortunately, her journey ended on September 22nd, 2018. So Blair was only 13 months old. So um it was a massive shift. And you know, you go, you meet somebody and you you have all these ideas and plans. And, you know, we were both relatively mature adults at that point, kind of, you know, had whatever one of us was a mature adult, the other one was still working on it. Um, that uh that you know, you had all these things kind of lined up and all of a sudden life goes left and you just kind of go, oh no, I'm gonna have to kind of figure this out. And you know, it I'll I'll go back to the cancer part. So the cancer part for anybody that's listening, if you have a spouse that has either a chronic illness or unfortunately a terminal illness, and as a dad, you're doing the caregiving, it just is a it's a it's a it is a real pain. It is it is a lot to deal with. And I think that as men, for whatever reason, the way we build our our male communities aren't quite as I I don't want to I don't want to say that it's easier for women. I I don't want to I don't want to say that because it's probably not fair, but just the way that we connect with as on a guy level, and the way we connect, and I I think I've said this before someplace else, and it seems to ring true. But women will say, Hey, let's go, let's go do a thing so we get so oh I know you really well, let's go do a thing. Guys will say, Let's do a thing so I can get to know you better, right? So, like we put the activity in getting to know someone where a woman will, and I'm overgeneralizing, but like a lady will be like, You and I are really good friends, let's go shopping. A guy would be like, Hey, let's go watch the game together so I can get to know you better. Like, so it makes like we can't, we can't seem to without some sort of commonality, we can't seem to, and so then you throw in loss or complication or or uh a sickness or an illness. It it's really hard to find a community because you're so busy doing this other role, and men don't you don't have the time now to go to the ball game, you don't have the time now to sit in the driveway and drink beer and talk about how green your grass grass is or whatever your thing is, right? Or go or go golfing. That's like one of my things. I definitely didn't have four hours every Saturday to go find a community of guys to talk about this thing. So I think as a caregiver and a newborn, again, going back to saying earlier, and I kind of chose this for a reason. Um, I just shifted. You just went from like, oh, now we got to do this thing. Like we thought we were gonna be raising a newborn and planning this life together, and now I'm gonna be taking care of my wife who has cancer and taking care of a newborn. Now we had a lot of help. I'm very blessed that my mom was able to move out from California because she was retired and help us. And my in-laws live just in Ohio and they wound up renting a house kind of like around the corner from us, and so it wasn't as bad as or as complicated as some other people's are. We had an amazing support community in our neighborhood and our friends and stuff, and so it kind of made it a little more manageable, but nonetheless um stressful. And so after she passed away, after I don't like that word, after she died, because that's a way more easier way to say it. I'm basically left with this 13 month old, and at the time, so let me go back four years, so 14, 15-year-old. And I go, Well, okay, I gotta figure this thing out. And so little did I know COVID was gonna roll into town. Yeah, so right, so like two years into losing my wife, I'm actually in the transition of moving, right? And everything just kind of paused for me. And I was lucky enough to work for a company that was compensating me, even though I wasn't technically reporting into go to work. Um, and so just like the world kind of shut down, I was already like not doing normal stuff. I was just taking care of the baby and I was just taking care of uh my older daughter and trying to figure this thing out. As I started to connect and find through random ways, whether it was through cancer groups or widow groups, as I try to find other guys in my situation, they're just I couldn't find them. And there's a ton of reasons why guys aren't as active on social media. We don't you we don't share. We definitely we definitely don't share about us crying, right? Like we there's not a lot of posts, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 6:37

It's a very personal thing, yeah.

Matt: 6:38

And it's very and it also depending on how people are wired, like some people are just in just more personal, they just keep things a lot closer to the chest, both male and female. And I and so I you know started to look for them, and then I was like, I was having conversations with a couple of the guy friends who are widowed, and uh I thought about writing a book about my experience, and I'm a horrible writer. So one of my peers I look up to said, he goes, Well, if you're a bad writer, don't write a book. I'm like, that's probably really good advice. Um right, like, yeah, don't do that. Like, if you're a bad dancer, don't don't go on America's got, you know, don't go on uh the dancing show. That's a bad idea. Don't do that. Dance with the stars. Like, don't don't do that. Um, that uh we'd have these conversations, and I would learn something from another fellow widows um that I talked to. And uh talking to someone, they said, Well, why don't you record your conversations? We're like, ah, no one wants to do that. So the pandemic hits, and a bunch of us, uh, four of us guys who had lost their wives through different ways. One, uh, his wife was uh hit by a car on her morning walk, another one was an accidental um overdose due to a chronic pain issue she'd been having like a lot of her life. My wife was cancer, and another guy was cancer. And so we were gonna go down to like uh Bahamas or something. We had like an Airbnb, we're gonna get drunk on rum, press record, and listen to like grief, like drunk grief history, right? We were just gonna have fun with it. We were like, we'd met before, we're like, ah, we have good energy. Well, COVID hit, and so then the the co recording, the conversation came up again, and someone said, Well, why don't you do a podcast? And I was like, Well, no one wants to hear us talk about this stuff. Like, come on. Well, I was wrong, people do, and so the podcast was born. And going back to what we were talking about a little bit ago, I use the word and I I choose to do this and maybe I can make it a thing going forward. There is a very I've done the single dad thing, I've done whether we weren't married, but like we did the other weekends, we did Tuesday night dinners, we coordinated vacations, we did the whole thing, and I've done it for 18 years. There's a very big difference between being a single parent and being a solo parent. Like, there are worries and concerns I have because my daughter's mom is dead that I never had, and I still don't have with my oldest daughter. Like, if I miss a track meet, I'm not worried that no one is showing up. Her mom can show up, right? Like, like there's someone you can tag in, and so there's all these weird anxieties that like creep in being a solo parent. And you don't have to become a solo parent just through death. Like, there are some very interesting uh situations I've been introduced to where I'm like, wow, the parent just decided they didn't want to be a parent and just they've never been around. And that's an I can't fathom that choice, but maybe they just know better that they should not be a parent, and that's the that's their choice and that's their journey. So then there is the parent that's left, is it's all so it doesn't always have to do with death, and that's a whole different type of grief where like you know the person's alive and they're out there, but they just don't want to talk to their kid. Like, I can't woof, right? So that's a whole different type of loss versus that one. And so the solo, the solo dad podcast was kind of born, and uh it kind of has kind of like how you do a little bit of mix of stuff. We started with just us core guys talking, and then I realized you know, there's only so many times people want to hear my voice and my co-host's voice. So then we started to have other guys on who are widowed just to share their story or bring awareness to like colon cancer. And this month we're gonna have some uh parents who have kids who are autistic, and because it's uh autism awareness month, and talk about how grief is dealt with differently if you have an autistic child. Like, I can't, I don't have one, but I was like, how can I kind of marry this with different levels of grief and loss? And and um people who want to share their story. I'm I'm absolutely honored to be able to host it and have it. And then going back to kind of like your your part with the the girl dad nation, just also being honest with what it's like being a dad. So it's not just all you know, grief and loss, but we talk about things like tricks on uh tricks on how to feed kids or like what what do you do when you have a massive blowout and you're like you know, you're 20 minutes from the house, like you know, all the fun, all the all the challenges. Uh, one of the things, so you'll appreciate this really good friend, really good friend and widow Ben, who lives in your neck of the woods. Um, he was talking in one of the podcasts one time about this thing called a lollipop tree. And I'm like, I'm sorry, what's a lollipop tree? He goes, Well, you know how like when you're on a hike and the kids start dragging their feet, well, you have one of the other parents just walk ahead about two to three hundred yards and put lollipops in a tree. I'm like, this is the greatest trick I've ever heard, right? I'm like, I'm I've never heard of that before, but genius, right? What is what is what you have four kids, four little dum dums? What's that cost? Eight cents, and like he goes, You should see these kids truck up a mountain for a nine cent lollipop, right? He goes, and you got to kind of use it like a little past the halfway mark when they're kind of getting. But I was like, is there a lollipop tree? I'd go on more hikes if there's if there was a beer tree, I'd be hiking every day. But so right, so just little things like that come up. That's not just a solo dad thing, that's just a fun kind of dad trick or dad hack that's great together, right? So you could, yeah, that one that went for free. But so it's not just about loss, but but then it's also about like the and then the other side of it, or not one of the other sides of it is you know, like we're talking about the attributes my youngest daughter has that are very much like her mother. And you go, Oh, like I this isn't natural to me to be this way because it's her mom. And then you kind of go, How would her mom handle this? But I'm not her mom. And and it's it's a little sad right now. When my daughter grows up, she says, I well, this is audio, so no one can see. Well, you'll see a picture of me. I have a beard, and my four-year-old says, When I grow up, I want to have a beard. I'm like, Oh man, we need to we need to get some more feminine energy in here. So I mean, if that's your life journey and that's what you want, there's way, but that's a whole nother conversation. But like, uh okay, yeah, I get you want to be like dad, but maybe we need to get you to be more like mom. So it's a whole brief component that comes in, right? And everyone kind of has ways of dealing with their emotions differently, but I tend to lean towards being honest with it and authentic with it because it's true. Like, I, you know, not that long ago after dropping her off at uh pre-K, pulling you know, a couple apart, you know, the car drop-off craziness, right? Yeah, pull a couple of car spots off and pull over, and it's just for that. I cannot I can't even right now recall what the trigger was, but I had a moment that I just cried because I'm like, man, my wife's not here, and this is just a really uh lame situation, and there's this amazing girl going off to conquer pre-K today, and she's not here. So it's it does tie into that, but so that it was kind of born through um encouragement, uh COVID. So I guess if anything positive came out of the whole craziness, uh, a podcast was born, and then it's also led to me hearing guys like you, hearing there's actually um a couple of really good, I won't overcross pollinate, but some other really good podcasts where it's like a widowed dad and a divorced dad talking about kind of their journey and like getting into dating and like you know, the kid thing. And so it's led me to find other people having conversations around parenting, around being a dad that uh uh also I say oscillate, but reverberate within me where I'm like, I like what we're talking about, I'm learning things, I like this person's perspective. I mean, just in our conversation alone, like my daughter's now gonna start kissing food when she says she's done with it. So that's awesome, right? That's great. So I so yeah, so it was born just because um I in the last part of it is it was also born because when I did find podcasts for, and I always get us confused, and I should remember, I'm a widow er, I think is how it works, but a male widow. The only one I could find, and hopefully this guy doesn't hear this, but no disrespect. But the guy holding this podcast, and he's like, and on today's episode, we're gonna talk to Bob, who lost his wife after 65 years of marriage, and Bob doesn't know how to make soup. And I'm like, that doesn't help me. Like, I need someone who's talking about a dad bag and diapers and like you know, daycare. And how do you, you know, how do you how do you handle the situation when like the house is a complete mess and there's no one asked for help and you're losing your mind, and you know, when is when when is it okay to drink alone in the dark because there's no one? Like, like I appreciate Bob to not only make stoop, but this is not speaking to me in the next 20 years of my life of raising this kiddo. Um, so yeah, so it was kind of like, well, no one else is talking about it, so let's see what happens. And there are other people, I can't I can't say there aren't, but there definitely is not my voice, and what I mean by that, a male voice talking about male grief, and even on all the social media channels, when you look at like TikTok, you look at Twitter, you look at Instagram, you look at Facebook, when I'm in widow groups, and it is largely 90% women, mostly for a bunch of different reasons that we just talked about. Women are more willing to talk about things and share probably things on an emotional level than guys aren't. Sure, more women are on social media than guys. And more often than not, women are the ones that lose their spouses, not guys, especially at this young of an age. And so it's just statistically speaking, it's like you're looking for a haystack inside of a needle stack inside of a haystack inside of a needle system. So um, so that's how it came about. And it's um it's been good for me. And I hope that uh I hope other dads listening, whether solo dads, single dads, or really nice guys like you that apparently are happily married, and they can get something out of it too, when we talk about like normal daddy stuff. It was kind of the intention, not necessarily like you know, I know yours is girl dad nation, but that doesn't mean that when we talk about changing the context of words that can't come into play when you talk about describing a little boy. There's no there's no reason.

SPEAKER_01: 16:17

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, right.

Matt: 16:19

So, like, so I don't know what it off the top of my head, I can't think of a negative bully, let's say, right? Like, well, there are good bullies and bad bullies. Like, if your son stands up for people getting in trouble, then yeah, that's a strength to have. Like, yeah, you tell people don't pick on yeah, you know, Susie because you know, she has curly hair or whatever. Um, so yeah, so I think that that even just because things kind of sometimes can get siloed, it doesn't mean you can't go into a silo and apply it to to your situation. So that's how I was born, and it's been going well. And it's um I think it's gonna be interesting to see what this year brings because the last year was really the kind of the first one and ironing out some kinks and stuff. So it's been it's been good. So yeah. So that's my quick that's great version of what happened.

SPEAKER_01: 17:04

Well, yeah, I I appreciate your joy and your openness too to talk about a very difficult topic. Um, and I appreciate that you are talking about it being in the trenches. Um, not that like losing your wife at any age is any easier, but uh but when you have a young daughter that you're still raising and one that's almost in college and you're trying to navigate all of this as a solo dad, yeah, there's a lot of people also in your situation that you you don't know of. Um and if if podcasts like this don't exist, yeah, it's it's really hard to feel like you're you're kind of on your own. But it's great that you've kind of built a community um and you've reached out to other people and yeah, hopefully inspire other people and people that uh maybe are in a different situation but can still learn um from your experience. So yeah.

Matt: 17:52

Well, I thanks, man. I I and I do think too, like what's interesting is I I always go back to the if you haven't watched the movie The Matrix, I don't know what's wrong with you, but I go back to where they do the I think the red pulls the pills, yeah. And I akin that to like you can only know one reality, right? Like, I don't know what it's gonna be like to have a wife of 20 years with the same kid. Like maybe one day I'll have a partner again. I don't know, but but like I don't know what that's like, and you know, uh we'll just play yours out. You I say happily married, you have the two kids or three kids or whatever, and you go down 40 years, and it's that doesn't mean one is easier than the other, you just can only know what you know, yeah. And so kind of one of the things I go is I go, well, if if I can share something that people like, and I appreciate what you just said too, is that like I don't think it's a big deal. I because I don't I don't know that there's uh I'm using air quotes because you can't see yeah, an easier way to do it. I'm like, well, this is just what I have to deal with. Now, I probably would guess that I have some emotional breaks that you I can't imagine. Like, look, I can't imagine having my kid to have a feeding tube in her. I that would break my heart. Like, I when you told me that, I was like, Yeah, Blair was with one with two little Blair was a 100% healthy child. Like, she had a little kink in her neck with so tortocolists and you had tor tortoise, you know, pitosis, which was like a lazy eyelid that she had fixed. So very healthy kid, right? So I can't imagine through what you went through. And then you would probably go, like, this guy feels sorry for us with a feeding move and his wife died. Like, I'm like, but I don't know what it's like to have, I can't imagine having this little per right. So I think that's the other thing that people um take. I don't, I think they take for granted is that like there's no life is hard and there's complexities and hiccups in everybody's life. But I think one of the things that people dismiss is like I don't my load, I don't think is any harder than anybody else's, only because like I I can't compare it to anything else. I only know this one, and I only ever know this one, depending on. Beliefs, but I will only ever consciously know this one. And so, and so then it goes like, Well, so it kind of removes the context of like degrees of badness, right? Like you're saying, like, is it better or worse? To I don't know. I I think that a lot of us at times we get caught up in the comparison game, like, oh, that looks really easy. Well, we don't know, like maybe they had a struggle really hard to get in the big fancy house with the cool cars and all that stuff. We don't know what the struggle was like. Like, I use an example of like I have I have uh um trying to do this so I don't get in too much trouble. I have I'll speak very generally. I have some friends whose parents have married long gone, they've passed away, but like just the quiz essential cookie cutter American life, like just awesome. And then you come to find out, and I'm over-exaggerating, right? Like, the mother never hugged them ever. Like they just never got hugs in their household. They weren't a hugging household. I was like, That'd be weird. Like my family hugs all we just hug all the time. And so, like, yeah, on the outside, it looks like this perfect American family, right? And then you realize like this. I'm talking talking to making this kind of a little bit up, but like talking to one of my best friends, going, like, your mom never hugged you. He goes, No, I can't remember. I'm like, What? What? Like, that sounds awful. Yeah, sure. Trips to Disneyland and you had the house and your parents were perfect and everything was fine. He never hugged you. So, like, I don't know what it's like to have a family that doesn't hug me. It'd be weird. So, is that better or worse? I don't know, right? So, but I do appreciate you recognizing that you know, being honest with it and sharing it. And I think that it's important to have different voices like yours or mine and other some other podcasts, just sharing their story because there's a quote from someone, and dang it, I I'm gonna not give him credit because I think it's Simon Senek, a guy who does business stuff, but he talked about on a podcast one time about like you might you might be feeling lonely right now, but you're not alone, right? And I think a lot of times people feel both, right? You're like, oh my no one else knows any now. I can't know exactly what it's like to have a kid with a feeding tube, but I know it's like to go in a doctor's appointment going like my kid's not doing well, please somebody help me. Sure. Um, so I think that that's a big thing too, where it's like when you share these things, and it's like, oh my gosh, I'm not the only, I'm not the only girl dad in the planet. Like, there's other guys that have gone down the aisle and going, like, which diaper do I get? Do I get the one that you're right? How pink do I get? Right. And so yeah, it's good to have that out there because you also then when you're feeling lonely, you can know that you're not alone. And I'm again, that is Simon Sinekar. That's great. I love that quote, right? It's fantastic because yeah, that's a great quote. It does, it really helps. So I appreciate it, man. And I've I've I've listened to a couple of yours already. And uh thank you. I was looking at um a couple of the titles, and so I've earmarked that's what I was doing on the side screen. I earmarked a couple that I'm gonna want to listen to for sure. So I appreciate thank you so much. Yeah, I appreciate you doing the girl dad thing because as many uh as you can be proud of any type of kid you have, but we all know those uh not all, but the the the what are the mom of boys, boy mom or whatever that are super and I have some on my neighborhoods and all that. Yeah, I listen, I only have girls, and then we can we can wrap it up here. But I used to think as a guy, as a man, I wanted a son, and now that I've had two daughters, I'm like, I don't I don't know what to do with one of those. Like they are intense, like they they jump off of things and they run around and they make noises, and like the other dads that have sons are like, Well, does Blair do that? I'm like, No, we have princess bubble parties and go to sleep. We don't there's no running on the couch. Like, I mean, I love your son, but he's nuts, like in a good way, right? Like, I just feel like, yeah, I don't know what I do with that now that I've had two daughters. So I appreciate you sharing being a girl dad, and I think it's a cool thing. And of course I do because I mean I have a pink shirt and I get my nails done, so I don't think it's a big problem. So I appreciate it too, Matthew.

SPEAKER_01: 23:45

Really, thank you. And yeah, I mean, the reality is uh we have two daughters right now, both under three, but who knows? Like, I might have a son, uh, which would be great, and I'd be welcoming to that. Well, give it like go ahead, go ahead with like a nine-year-old boy and seeing a little boy.

Matt: 24:03

No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_01: 24:04

But but I love my daughters, and like just having daughters has given me this new perspective. You you've mentioned the word soft. Um, I don't think that's necessarily like a negative word, but uh, but yeah, kind of this openness, I guess, uh, a perspective, a feminine perspective that I think it is a really positive trait to understand things um from a compassionate side and and just this wonder and this awe. And uh yeah, and I think it's great. So even if I have sons, um, I still want to raise them to not be bossy but strong leaders. Absolutely. But but also to respect their sisters and and to value those traits in them as well, um, and and their other female friends.

SPEAKER_02: 24:49

So yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 24:51

Um, man, there's so much I could I could get into, but I uh I I just want to point people to your podcast, the Solo Dad podcast, um, for more of your stories. Yep. And one thing that I ask uh just in the final minutes, one thing that I ask all my guests, and I I want to uh give you this opportunity now. If there's something you could tell your daughters, Samantha and Blair directly, uh, what would you tell them? And then I will add one more for your late wife. What's something that you've you've learned from her that you would want to pass down uh as well?

Matt: 25:26

Man, those are who those are two really good questions. Uh the first one to what would I if my daughters could hear?

SPEAKER_01: 25:36

Yeah, something directly to them.

Matt: 25:44

Man, um I'm trying I'm trying not to break that I love them more than I think they will ever know. And that um for who they are today and who they will become tomorrow and beyond, there is probably quite literally almost nothing they can't do that I wouldn't be proud of them for. I mean, they my 18-year-old blows my mind, and my four-year-old, because she's so much like her mom, uh she just I'm in awe of both of them for who they can become in the world. And it's just an honor to to try to try to guide them, but it really is. I mean, it's it's it's a wacky world out there, and if you get a chance to influence uh your kids to do just a little better, it's such an honor to be their parent. Yeah, sorry. That's amazing. Yeah, and then uh and then from my wife, oh man. Um we'll go we'll you know what we'll go two parts. From my wife, one of the things that I learned, and I'm sure she got this from some of her coaching professionally and personally, but rocks are hard and water's wet. What are you gonna do about it? Like there are just times in life that things just are they they just are what they are, and they're not good, they're not bad, but you you and I the the the little point one behind that that's in the first one is um get mad as hell for about six seconds because anger's never really solved anything. And then also what are you gonna do about it? Because that that had a lot to do with our her cancer journey as well. It's like, well, being angry at cancer, I mean I don't know what you're gonna do about that. And so uh those were probably two like kind of the same. And then the other one that I in the realm of uh relationships, there is such uh an amazing thing when you find a person that is uh to oversimplify the yin to your yang. They just we in four in nearly five years we had one and I don't even call it an argument, like one little like kind of right, because for a bunch of different reasons. And I think what I learned from my wife was like the big stuff really matters and the little things really don't. Like the things that I think a lot of people get tripped up on in relationships, they're really not that important, especially when you've been through what I've been through. Like you're like, you know what, the fact that they I don't know, leave the clothes outside the hamper. Sure, it's not that big of a deal when you stare down, you know, like cancer, or you stare down like a life altering, or if you've got like a sick uh a kiddo or something. So I think the other thing would be like, you know, the big things really matter and the little things aren't as important as you may think they are in the moment. Um, so those would be the two. She definitely the the rocks, I'd say that one a lot when things get hard. Um or I get tripped up. I'll be like, rocks are hard and water's wet. Now are you gonna do about it? Like, right? Because yeah, that's just the way it is. It's like you got you still have to do something. You can't just sit there. Well, most of us would just sit there and and let that happen. So those would that would probably be those are probably the well, there's probably one more that I definitely being this we'll speak to the dad of daughter, sorry. Sure. Another one would be she definitely planted the seed in my mind that I now have fully understood, which is just because something hasn't happened to me doesn't mean it's not somebody else's reality. And specifically going back to like working in a corporate America and being a woman in finance, which is a mostly dominant male field anyway. Like, just because I've never walked into a room and felt that everybody thought I was lesser than doesn't mean it hasn't happened to somebody, or just because in the example I that we talked about one time, my wife and I was like, I've never been cat called, no one has ever whistled at me on a sidewalk ever in my life. Does that mean it doesn't happen? No, right? And so that's the other one. Yeah, I've had to take a back seat to under or take a step back when someone has an opinion about something or a viewpoint about something, and I go like that seems wack-a-doo. And then I realize, wait a minute, they're they're speaking from a perspective of it happened to them, right? And so if it happened to them and it's never happened to me, it changes your perspective. It doesn't mean I have to agree with their end result, but it just gives you a little more empathy for people to try to go like, you know what? That's one that I that came after she died. I kind of just started to go like, oh yeah, this makes like not everyone, not everyone's gone through the same thing I have. So that would be the last one that it definitely definitely gave me a planted a seed of empathy to understand that just because it hasn't happened to me doesn't mean it's not someone else's reality for sure. That's one that it's and especially with a lot of things that have gone on in this world lately. You kind of have to go, like, well, that's it, it rings true, right? It's that's just not because it didn't happen to me, doesn't mean it doesn't happen to something else. Yeah, for sure. So yeah, thanks for asking those, man. Those were I was I had written down a potty training story, but those were way better. I say we those. I don't want to. That was really good. Thank you for asking about the daughter thing. That's that's powerful, man. That's uh yeah, that's a good question. Both of those were really good questions.

SPEAKER_01: 31:25

Yeah, well, kind of this journey, too, for me is almost a bit of a time capsule of raising my daughters and and leaving something behind for them that they can always like sort of remember these kinds of things. So I I hope for my guests to like uh those positive, uh encouraging words for for their own daughters too, like what they want to leave for them.

Matt: 31:47

That's a great question to ask. It really is. It really, really is, Matthew. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 32:03

Hi, I'm Matthew Creckler, host of Girl Dad Nation. Thank you to Matthew Bradley for the opportunity to reach the Solo Dad podcast audience. Your support of these podcasts means a lot to us. For the full one hour interview and more great dad stories, please check out Girl Dad Nation wherever you get your podcasts. Solo Dad Podcasts and Girl Dad Nation are also on Instagram and Facebook, so be sure to follow us there. Until next time, go be a dad.