Education, Expectations, and Emotional Health

In this episode, we unpack the pressure this generation of kids faces — from school expectations to figuring out what they actually want their lives to look and feel like, not just what job title sounds successful.

We talk about how we were raised to obey without questioning, and why we’re choosing a different approach with our own kids: educating instead of restricting, teaching the “why” behind decisions, and allowing natural consequences to do the teaching instead of fear and control.

This conversation is about breaking generational patterns, redefining success, and raising kids who understand themselves — not just follow rules.

Because “because I said so” doesn’t build emotionally healthy adults.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Good afternoon, everyone. See, almost had the wrong intro on that one, but I caught myself. Hi, everybody. Welcome to Talk Out Loud with Beck and Tam. Rudy and Vanessa. That part two. Um, folks, let me just be clear. I'm really not gonna veer far away. You don't have to turn your face up. We are on video now. Dang it. I'm not gonna veer too far from red wine because it's just go for your heart. It's heart healthy. Like who's that? But then it's like it's kind of early for that.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

I don't know why vodka gives me a headache these days, even though I'm sure when I was taking every shot that was handed to me, there was backa in there. Maybe that's what it was. But no, I did bear from my tequila today. I'm made me a little whiskey sour, no egg white. I won a raffle basket at this thing I went to this weekend. It was derby themed. So I mean, yes, the whiskey's on point for the theme. And so I was like, I'm just I'm gonna have that today. No tequila at all. Cinco de Mayo has come and gone, and I did not also have a margarita. A little bitter, no chips, no sauce, no queso.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

You want to talk about it?

SPEAKER_00 1:24

I just feel like that's my day. I feel like if you know me, like my friends know like that's it's my day. No disrespect to you know that heritage or or culture, but I love tequila, I love the food, I love the culture. Like that's my it's my day. And I didn't I didn't go out and celebrate, so that's up. And why I nobody could meet up. Like I had plans, and then one person cancels, she wanted to be with her husband, and my other girlfriend and I are in divorce, and we were like, Boo, what was that movie? Boo, you whore. That's how we felt. So we're just like, and then my girlfriend was like, No, a good husband, you you know, you put him first. I was like, all right. Um, so it was just gonna be us, but she was coming from a long way. I would have had to come all the way home, drop off little girl, and then go back to that, to like the meeting place. And I was just like, we were both by the time four o'clock hit, we're like, girl, we'll just take a shot together on FaceTime. And we were like, let's do that. So we did. We just did a shot on FaceTime. And then I made a drink, and then went to sleep. So whatever. Okay, it's just not the same. It wasn't like a maybe in the environment, but whatever.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

And we both were like, we can it was not nothing, it was something to your uh expectation.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

I said you try to be positive when I want to be rotten because you do it to me all the time and it's really so I really do so click click.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

All right, folks. Yo, we have a lot to talk about today, actually, a lot to unpack. So I guess I'll start then. So um, I am mid-40. Actually, you know, I'm not ashamed of my age. I'm 45 and I look really good. So let me just say that. And I have found in my current state that I'm really trying to figure out what it is I want to do. I know that sounds really crazy, but you know, like in high school, uh, not even high school, like from the get-go, we are groomed, right? To be like the smartest ones, the top of your class. What are you gonna do, doctor, lawyer? Because they bring in all this money and you know, this whole shebang of bang. I mean, we're 80s babies, so that's just our generation. However, you know, I did the college, I I I found something. Well, I don't know if I've said the story yet, but um, I was actually pre-med when I entered into college only to get in there and fail chemistry, forgetting chemistry. And so I said, you know what? Hmm, maybe I need to figure that out. And my beautiful sister was like, you need to go to the Career Services Center and like take one of those tests that'll kind of tell you, hey, based on the things that you like to do. So my plug to the Discover, and I think it's the MNPI, but they're like tests that you can take that really just kind of help you narrow down, oh, this is what I like to do. And then it spits out some um occupations that would fall into what you're interested in. And oddly enough, the first thing that came up on both of those tests that I took were um social services, criminology, um, education. I was like, what? I mean, that's crazy, right? I'm obsessed. I've been obsessed with anything that has to do with criminal justice, criminal anything. I'm hit. And I feel like therapy kind of runs into that because I'm all I'm trying to do is to get down to the truth. And that's what I'm doing in criminal and criminology stuff as well. Let me get down to the truth. So with that being said, I feel like I've had a great healthy career in the mental health field. I've worked in nonprofit, um, not to just like go in and on, but I've done a lot of things that um got me to the point where I felt comfortable and confident enough to be able to teach others because I could come from a place of experience. I could come from, oh yeah, I tried that, that didn't work back then. Or I tried that back then, it didn't work then, but it may work now. Like I felt like I was being authentic when I was teaching others. Well, now I'm in my mid-40s and I've worked in a hospital setting for like 15 plus years. That sounds like I'm really old, but I've worked in in hospital settings for a really long time. And as much as I talk about burnout, I I think I'm there. And now I'm in a space of, okay, so what do I want to do? And thankfully I have a sister to talk out loud with because I'm like, all right, here's where I'm at. I know what I like to do, I know the things that interest me. And I saw a video on my social media recently that was just like instead of looking for jobs, I'm looking for what fits into the lifestyle that I want. And I was like, you know, I listened to everything at times too. So I'm like pushing the button so she can hurry up and tell me what her gimmick is. And she was just basically like, I think she was a recruiter for a really long time, and she was laid off, and now she's really assessing, hmm, what do I want to do? She's like, Well, I want a lifestyle that's flexible. I want to be able to keep my same salary, I want to be excited about what I do every day. Not, I want to be a bookkeeper, I want to be a lawyer, I want to be a doctor, but like, what do I want my life to look like? Which is very different from what we've been talking about. Yeah, that's very different from what we were raised on. It's what's gonna make you the most money and not what's gonna fulfill your life. And so, anyways, so Tam and I were chatting, and I think now that I've given you all my background, the educational field has always been exciting to me. I love being able to learn something and then immediately give it to somebody else. Like I just feel like we should all share the will. And the school system is something that I've I'm really passionate about. Adolescence and education to me are like bread and butter. Yes. And Tam works in an educational setting. And so just talking to her about some of the things that she sees in the school system, where for me, I'm coming from a mental health stand, like a mental health outlook of all right, what you know, trauma-informed care, what's going on with the kids? And Tam, do you want to like talk out loud about the stuff that you see in the school system now?

SPEAKER_00 8:39

I just would like every time I do like the climate surveys, it's really not like a bash against administration per se. It's just I I've walked the halls or I've been in another school. That yes, sometimes it is the kids are a little bit more wild, but it's also the way that the adults are talking to the children. And it just irks me. Also coming from being a yelling parent and having to go through therapy of my own to realize like we're talking at each other, is what she used to say to me. We're just talking at each other, no one's listening, like you're wasting your time. And the kids don't care. They have the blood pressure of a tree. It's in my where I am wasting away and on blood pressure medicine. Like, why am I still yelling? I don't want to yell. I'm really not that upset. I'm upset at something else. But it's like I'm getting off track. But yes, yeah, I had to realize, like, what am I really upset about? Like, if my kid missed the bus, I'm upset because I hadn't I now have to get up and I wasn't ready to get out. Did he miss the bus once out of 55 days? Relax. Like, take him to school. Don't start his day with yelling and getting on to him and yin-yin-yin. Like, it's not every day that he missed the bus, right? But like when you go to school, it's like they're not wearing their ID and they're yelling at him. Like, these kids are not mourning people, especially in middle school. They're not, they're not warning people. They don't want to hear before they've put food to their mouth that you know they need to turn back around and don't even think about coming this way if you don't got your ID. And like, I if I was a child today, girl, we weren't gonna make it. My mouth is too slick. Like, I don't care about this this ID. You know what I'm saying? Like, you see me every day, you know I go here. But yes, you're supposed to follow the rules, yada yada, whatever. But it's just it's just like, can we like bring it down at 8 a.m.? Can we like welcome them softly and see if there's a change in their behavior? I know that sounds like crazy, but like really watch the way that you talk to them. Everything is so instigative, and for me, that's a trigger. Yeah. That's a trigger for me. Don't don't speak for me when you're talking to me. Don't answer your own question that you're really not asking me, you're telling me. And then now you automatically don't believe me. And then if I try to talk, I'm now I'm disrespectful, even though I was just trying to say the correct sentence. It's a lose room. You can't win there. You pull them in the office, you take them away from actual learning time. So now they missed an assignment that they're not going to be able to make up, and just to sit there. They sit and wait in the office the whole period, waiting on the administrator to come who's busy doing something else. Could you just like let me know when he's back and then get me? Or have him get me when he's ready? Like, stuff like that. Or then, like, somebody else is talking to them that really isn't supposed to be talking to them, but you're not gathering any data that this happened to my kid yesterday. Somebody else, because the administrator wasn't available. And I'm like, Well, did she have a notepad? Was she writing down what you're saying? Is she like, is this for evidence? And I was like, or was she just killing time? And she was like, She's just killing time, but she kept cutting me off. And I was like, now I'm not, and just for context, I'm not one of those parents that believes my child, um, the sun rises out of her toot. Like, it isn't, it isn't that. I definitely like listen to all sides. I'm this monotone and calm when they're talking, or if someone else is telling me something about it, I'm gonna assess and I'm gonna investigate myself. But in this case, I it's happened more than once. So I'm like, what was the point of this?

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

And then it's like, oh, they have to stay away from me from their experience. What why pull her? Why pull her? Like it just didn't make any sense for me. Um, I don't know. So just a lot of the things don't really add up to resolution for me. We're just wasting time. And then they go through. I don't know if I'm like saying things that I should say, but the beginning of the school year, they have like a training on I don't want to say what it is in case I'm not supposed to say, but they have a training on like how you speak to the kids, how you should be like mindful of them.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Across all school districts, they have all those, you know, in services for the beginning of the year where yes, there's like academic stuff, but there's also like hopefully some kind of like trauma-informed care or you know, we're supposed to pay a student kind of stuff going on. Yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Yeah, they have to pass this, whatever this training is, they have to like actually pass. They have to bring problems, like it's a it's a whole thing. So I was like, oh, is this does this happen all the time? Because I'm new to school school districts. And she was like, Yeah. And so I'm like, okay. But then that doesn't change the tone when the when the kids get in the school, like when school starts, like they still talk to them crazy, they're still yelling, they're yelling at them in the hallway. They're like, I don't know. It's it's it could be useful because it's loud in the hallway if it's like a passing period. I understand. But to just be yelling at a kid for no reason and be like, no, you can't come back here, and oh, try that with somebody else or your mom works here, like it's a threat. And I'm like, this way, they don't trust you now. You want to have this safe space, you say that you want a safe space if when you're in a meeting, but when you're around the kid, you don't act like somebody who wants to create a safe space.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

No, it's all about control. I am in control, I'm the leader, this is my classroom. And I have worked with educators before, and that's usually the first thing I tell them the minute you say that is the minute you are no longer in control of your classroom. When you are uh, this is my rule, this this, if you honestly sat back, I mean, and this kind of ties into some other stuff too, but just like we have all these rules, right? What's the point? What if we really sat back and thought, okay, we're not allowed, like, for example, right? We're not allowed to say darn or dang because it's too close to damn. What's what what is the actual, you know what I mean? Like, what's gonna happen if I say darn? Because I'm expressing my emotion and my feeling, and I'm and I'm hoping a safe space, like at home. And when you prevent your child from doing that, I'm not by no means am I saying, let your kid curse in front of you. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying if we really took a deeper dive and unpacked some of the expectations and the rules that we have for our kids, I think we would sit back and be like, is that because of, you know, uh an actual reason, or is it because I want to be in control and I want to show them that I am the leader and the god? Is it?

SPEAKER_00 15:36

I mean, I know for pass down. I feel like they didn't, they don't, for me, this is just my opinion. Like, you didn't have control in something, so now you don't know how to give it away. You want to take it because you didn't have it. And so it's it just passes down from one to one to one to one to one. And it's like not letting them go to the restroom or them getting in trouble for spraying deodorant. Like, how is this a problem, people? Let them go to the restroom. Let them be funky in the class, go to the restroom.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

That's like everybody's educational experience.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

I was just like, was this in the rules somewhere that like they couldn't have this? And maybe I missed it, maybe I didn't read it. I don't know. Um, but I was just like, when did this become like something you get reprimanded for? Like, I can't put lotion on in the class, you know, all these allergies and foo-foo things for these people. It's like this just wasn't this was not around for us.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

So I don't know. To add to that, it's explaining the why behind. I feel like when we were growing up, parents didn't, I mean, our parents did not explain the why behind we're having to do something. It was just do it because I said so. Whereas we have evolved, we need to explain why. Hey, I don't want you spraying that around the classroom because the door is closed and it's really uh fragrant. If you want to do it, I'm all about a yes before a no, folks. So if that's happening, to be like, hey, yes, you can spray that, but can you step outside in the hallway where there's like more air than spray it and then come back in? That would have gone so much easier than don't be spraying that in my classroom, you know, because and not even saying it first because I'm sending up and then sending them to like the office.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

And I'm like, can she just put it away in her bag? Like it was wild to me because little girl got in trouble for that last year. And I was like, well, did they tell you that you weren't supposed to have that out and like you disobeyed the rules, or like I'm lost? When did this did they just decide it was rule today and take it up? Like there was just no, like, there was no there was no expectation set. There was no, this is not allowed in my classroom, or you know, you can't eat in here, or today you can have a snack. Like, there was just none of there was just none of that. And then, like, for me, everybody is just always like, Oh, it's almost break time, oh, we're almost in here, oh, tumor. And I'm just like, do y'all like children? Do you want your job? Because if you're not happy, you went through a lot of certifications, a lot of testing, a lot of schooling, more power to you, but like what you do, and I think that just goes back to your point. Like, don't do something you don't want to do.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Nobody means or I feel like this is what I'm supposed to do, or I like the schedule.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

Because the children can feel that you don't want to be here either. They do, they know it, they are slick as I don't know what. Because even today they were like, Oh, these eighth readers are antsy, they're they're mess, they're getting messed, like they're ready to get out. And I was like, I'm sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

They're going from the top of the totem pole to the bottom of the totem pole next year. And instead of sleeping in and not having to start school till like nine, well, at least that's how it was in Georgia, and and then in high school, y'all are up at like 7 a.m. You ready for that? That must be. Like, how have we prepared our kids for real life?

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Yeah, girl was like, I want to stay in middle school because I don't want to get up that early. I was like, oh, sweet baby, that doesn't it's not gonna work like that. You're going to high school and you will catch that bus at 6 30. I will not be taking you.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Well, I mean, we've talked about this too, like, you know, how are we preparing our kids for real life, right? You know, some of the chores that we've instilled in our kids so that they can understand, like, there's expectations when you go outside, and not just necessarily from an employer, but like when the when the light turns red, you gotta stop. Because why behind? There's other cars that need, you know, it's about the flow of traffic. Like, that's why I'm telling you to stop, or I'm telling you to take out the trash because if not, there's a lot of bugs that start around DJ with bugs. No, I don't either. So it's best to take it out on this day because it's right before, you know, like if you actually have a conversation with your kids, you'll actually one, no, learn a lot about them, and two, be able to instill and impart in them what you want, which is that they are be that they will be successful members of the society.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

And also when their children ask, because so did ours. We couldn't ask questions, but our children asked, so it makes us have to figure out the answer. And then we didn't really know because it wasn't told to us.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

And so now it's like, oh, okay, now that I've had to create my own system of organization after divorce, I have my why of why I want things done, why I want them on a certain day, certain time. One, I don't want to sit here and follow you around like our mother did to us. I'm I will not do it. I'm not coming to check. I'm not coming to check on it. I'm not going upstairs, to be fair. Um, I I'll be like, send me a video. Little girl already knows. Do you want me to send a video? I do, because I'm not coming up there. And like little boy is pretty much he's pretty much clean, but like he'll leave trash or water bottles or food. He'll leave that. So I just said, like, on trash day, all that needs to come down with the trash. Like, I really don't ask much. Y'all have your days for chores, and I I do them because for me, I feel like it's easier if you already have stuff to do. Like there's the trash day is on Mondays and Thursdays. That's a great day to clean everything else. So that I don't I don't like to stagger. Like if I'm free on Tuesday, I want to be free. I don't want to be like, oh, okay, now I have to clean the bathroom. Wednesday, I have to vacuum. And then Thursday, I need to mop. Or like, no, I'm gonna do everything on Monday, and then Tuesday, I'm gonna be sitting pretty. Chilling. Where are we going? Where are we going to happy hour? Like, I don't want to do that. I don't do laundry on the weekend. I mean, unless I absolutely have to, but like it just excellent idea.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

I don't know if anybody else feels that way, but I know when we were growing up, we had to do laundry on Tuesdays and on Saturdays, and those were the two days I did not look forward to. But you do laundry on what, like Thursday? What day do you do laundry?

SPEAKER_00 21:57

I'll do Thursday, but like for me, I'm usually home on Friday. Like it's the end of the week now that I have somewhere to go to work instead of working at home. Yes, I'll wait till the end of the week. And then I wash on Friday because I'm not really going anywhere or doing anything. And I have one load, guys. Like I don't change clothes 50 times during the day. Like it's not that extreme. No. I understand people have little kids and they go to daycare or use sports on the weekend. I was that mom too. I get it. My children wash their own clothes. So I'm out of that. But yeah, they they learn, or they'll do those on they'll do theirs on Sunday night because they're usually out and about on the weekend. Good for you. Um, but listen, if you don't have clean clothes, that's that's only you, which is another lesson in it.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

So learn. You don't do your laundry, don't worry about it. You will not have clean clothes. And when someone makes fun of you for stinking, that may behoove you to wash your clothes.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

The more I stopped talking about like, oh, your clothes are wrinkled, you don't want to iron that girl, or like and today she got up and ironed before school. She was like, I think she looked in my mirror in my bathroom and she was like, I think I need to iron my pants. Girl, they were wrinkled, so wrinkled. But I didn't say anything. Yeah. I said nothing because it needs to be your decision. If anything I've learned from ADD, ODD people, it needs to be their decision. It doesn't bother me. You look cute, you look cute here. And that's all I'm so if you want to go to school with wrinkled clothes, that's that's up to you. I'll let your friends tell you your clothes are wrinkled, but would they care? Because theirs are probably wrinkled too.

unknown 23:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

Unless their mom is, you know, not like that. I I remember organizing this one lady's house and she was so adamant about her son's room who was a teenager. But again, upstairs, she doesn't go up there often, and she would be so mad if he missed the bus because she wanted him to spread his bed. You know how we feel about that. So I was like, what's your issue? Like, what's you know, what's your why? What's your issue with the bed being spread? Like, do you want him to miss the bus? Or like, is someone going in there and they're gonna check that it's not spread and that you feel it reflects poorly on you? Like, what is your deeper issue?

SPEAKER_01 24:05

And there it is, Tam. It reflects poorly on you that no one actually is looking at gang about.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

No one cares, no one cares. No one's going upstairs to no one's coming to visit your house, first of all, on a random Tuesday, and then be like, hmm, let me go check her son's room, see if that beta spread. And then if not, like she's a shitty person. No, no one's gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

Oh my god. I think someone posted a video on that too. They were like, uh, this is what our parents think happens when we yeah, they're like going and looking in the hamper and looking at the baseboards. Nobody does that. Girl, is there liquor and food? I'm coming in.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

I just want to sit down and talk and relax. I really don't care. I don't care.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

You can have a pile of laundry on your couch.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

Yeah, girl. My when my friend's husband passed away, I went over there and just like did her did the laundry. It was everywhere, it was everywhere in the living room. I was I didn't turn around and be like, oh, I'll come back when it's clean. Are you kidding me? I sat down, I chatted with her, and I filled in the freaking laundry. I don't care. Like real friends don't care. Yeah, they just don't care.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Exactly. And why would you want to instill that type of rule anxiety, you know, onto your child, where, hey, you know, when you get out of this bed, it needs to look like we just bought it.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

For what? I'm gonna get I think it's you that said I'm gonna get right back in it. I just spread it because I need to.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

Right now, my bed is not spread, and I have no I was gonna say that word, but I don't care.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

I just, I mean, because I only sleep on one side, obviously. So I just when I get up, I but that I and I tell you my wife, yeah, I just I put the covers right back up, but it may not be neatly and the pillows aren't back, like I don't do that, but I only I only push it back because I have a wasp issue. And I just feel like I'm gonna I feel like if I leave it open, I'm like inviting them. Here's a nice inviting, I don't know, in my mind, probably sounds psycho, but in my mind, I'm like, nope, I'm gonna close this and then they won't get in my I don't know. So far, so good. Haven't seen any, but like, yes, there is a known, I live by the wire, there's a known bug issue over here.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

I think there are some things for sure that are like, yeah, like dishes. Yeah. Because why behind bugs, so on and so forth. Hey, um, taking the trash out, bugs, so on and so forth, clean clothes. Yeah. Now the day we waking kids up at 2 a.m.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

What? Are we waking kids up at like, you know, 2 a.m. if the dishes aren't done to come on? You know what I'm saying? That sounds real good in theory, but I want to go to sleep.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

I don't want to be up and know 2 a.m. Now, I am on the camp of adding to someone rather than taking something away. Let me explain. When there is punishment or a con, well, I don't like the word punishment, but this is just the therapy side of me, folks. So I am all for natural consequences. Absolutely. So, with that being said, if there, if you have done something, the natural consequences, dot dot, right? So, for example, you didn't uh, I don't know, do the dishes on the day that you were supposed to. Okay. Natural consequences tomorrow when you say, Mom can have Chick-fil-A, sorry, the dishes aren't done. That's a natural consequence. If you do what you're supposed to do, then I can, you know, I can reward that. Or um uh, you know, we were beaten whooped. I mean, I'm being dramatic, but you know, in our generation 80s, folks, you know, we got beaten whooped for doing things that were outside of what we were supposed to. Cool, cool, cool. Um, that doesn't work on the generation now. What does work is natural consequences. So beating you, yeah. What I can do is take away something that you prefer, or I'm going to add something, and that's where I like. I'm gonna add something to your your load. So, hey, you didn't do that. So now you must do this, this, and this to get back in my good graces so that you can move on, right? So you didn't do the dishes on on Tuesday, don't worry about it. Now, not only will you do the dishes, but you will mop all the floors and clean my bathroom because you you don't seem to understand the concept of responsibility or time frames, which again is what we are doing to prepare our kids for real work. I mean, nowadays these kids have options to be entrepreneurs, which is way different from what you and I came from. It wasn't like a oh, be in your own business. No, that's not security, that's not a safety net, that's not a bi-weekly paycheck that you can bank on, you know, going out there and doing stuff. But, anyways, you know, like the eight to five, that nine, the that nine to five or you know, Monday through Friday type of situation, that is of olden days, folks. People now are working from home, they're not getting up till 9:30, 10 o'clock, and you know, they may work random hours, but that's we have to evolve. Just like the the times in the society is evolving, so do we. And that means that some of the things that we may have thought were Bible back in the day aren't necessarily a Bible now. If you so I guess my to summarize, my my point is take a moment, take a beat, and just think about why do I have that role? Think about it, and especially if you have teenagers, like what is curfew? Why do I have that? Now I know for me and Tam, uh, I need to go to bed, and I can't go to bed until I know your butt is in this house. So, therefore, I'm gonna give you some time because you know I know you're young and y'all want to be fast and loose and all that. Okay, but midnight, um my eyes are getting heavy. And I need you either need to stay where you at. That's what I told my kid. You either stay where you at, so I know you're there, or you need to be back in this house by by midnight because mommy's eyes are heavy. And she was like okay. And and half the time she'd be like, I'm staying. I'd be like, Great, great, get him all right.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

But also, like, I would have probably fallen asleep by then, and then I wake up and then I see like I'm staying, and I'm like, I could have set my alarm. And I fell asleep, but I would have woke up at like 1 a.m. to because I'm like, is he back? Yes, and then I'll see the text, and I'm like, oh dang it, okay, he stayed. But now he's been like sleepy when he gets home, so then he's slept basically the night away in the daytime, and then he'll get up at like 10 30. The last few days he's been doing this. Get up at like 10 30 and come into my room, and then he'll like make some like gym reference, but not speak. He'll be like, I'll be like, I know that you're not thinking that you and my car are gonna step out. I'm always like, and my car? Your body and my car at midnight. He's like, mom, it's 10 30. And I'm like, but you're not gonna be back. He's like, I won't be back late. I'm like, who's at the gym? Like, he's like, everyone. I was like, what time does it close? He's like, it's it doesn't. I was like, I'm gonna call. I need to call up there because for your age, it should close. I just don't feel like dang, that was telling the truth. He's still like 12 to me. So and that's how I talk to him. Sometimes I understand, I understand it's my issue. But I'm like, it doesn't close. Like, no, not for you. You need to be you need to be home. So I've been letting him go. He's been doing his little smoothie. He's like, I just can't have a dad bot. I'm like, you're not a dad.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Like you're 17. What are you talking about? Bless his little cute heart.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

I just he's this big, y'all. Like it's like, I can't imagine about like now you're worried about your fitness, sir. That's because he's not playing basketball, but I'm just like it's all in their own time.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

Like you could have stressed that, like, hey, we need to get up and walk and stuff when they were younger. They don't care about that. But now, when it's important to them, it's like, oh, I need to get to the gym. Bye. Have a good time.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

During the day, what? Why why midnight? But then I I like in that moment when he did it like day two, and I just, you know, I let him go. I talked my shit, and then I let him go. And then when he left, I'm just like, he's almost, he's almost 18. And like if he lived in his own apartment, this is maybe the time he'd be going to the gym. And that as much as I want to cry right now, it's like, oh my God, he's really gonna have his own life out here, his own adult life. And if he wants to work out in midnight, he's gonna do that in like a few months. And I'm just I'm not okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

And since that's our time, I'm gonna leave you on this note. It is more important to educate than to restrict. So instead of saying, hey, no, no, no, no, no, let me educate you on what may or may not happen. So you want to go out at midnight, I'm not gonna restrict it, but let me tell you the consequences and natural things that could happen by being out at that time of night. I'm gonna educate you. That way, if you want to make that decision, when something negative happens, then you get the natural consequence, which was hey, I tried to tell you. You know, I know y'all think we're old and we don't know anything, but every now and then we may know a little something. Yeah. Yeah. Uh you know, I feel better. I always feel like loud.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

We'll definitely do a part two and more about like jobs and not working. That's true. So yeah.