Dad Problems: Money Stress, Time vs Family & Staying Connected as Husband & Dad | What’s Up Dad

In this episode of the What’s Up Dad Podcast, Grayson and Ryan get into real dad problems—the stuff most men are thinking about but don’t always say out loud. 

We talk about the pressure of providing (money stress, job decisions, and the “more income vs more time” tradeoff), how to create time without neglecting your family, and why being “in the same room” isn’t the same as being together. We also hit marriage rhythms after kids go to bed, intentional time with your spouse, and making everyday moments with your kids count. 

Plus we do two taste tests:

• Malibu Dole Pineapple Strawberry (drink review) 
• Lay’s Wavy French Onion Soup (chip review) 

💬 Question for you: If you could buy back one hour every day, where would you spend it—work, spouse, or kids?

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Disclaimer: This episode is for entertainment and general discussion, not professional advice.

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Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background Noise
03:40 Exploring Dad Problems
12:04 Balancing Family Time and Personal Time
20:59 Intentional Parenting and Quality Time
27:07 Taste Test and Conclusion
29:32 Chip Review: Expectations vs. Reality
34:08 Parenting Challenges: Monopoly Madness
36:26 Teaching Life Lessons Through Games
41:15 Coaching Kids: Celebrating Small Victories
43:05 Navigating Fairness and Life's Challenges
50:03 Podcasting Journey: Finding Authentic Conversations

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Transcript

0:19

What's up, everybody? It is the What's Up Dad podcast. Hello. I got my trusty co-host back with me here. Not the furry one, the real one. Both are trusty. Trusty. But well, I don't know if Nala's that trusty. She would have ate all my food and all the snacks. would have, yeah, consumed So I don't know if I can trust her that much. But nonetheless. So I'm going to disclose something. If you can hear something in the background, I am doing some 3D printing and Yep. I didn't stop it and it's going to run right through the episode. So hopefully you don't hear it. And if you do, well, just that's that. You did stop it and then you immediately restarted it right before we started the episode. Well, that's not fair because we were coming up with topics or things to talk about per se. And that's good, isn't it? It's good, but it's warm. So what they've been in the refrigerator for a while. They've been in the refrigerator for a while. They should have been in the freezer. Shouldn't they? Yeah. Okay. No, we were talking about stuff and so was like, well, I, I burnt 10 whole minutes and we could have been moving along. Whatever. Not a, you know, it's a dad problem, I guess, at the end of the day. So we got some Malibu Dole pineapple strawberry. That's the drink of the night. Trying something different. I'm trying to bring on the summer. That's really what I want. I want to bring on the summer. We got a taste test here. Waves French onion soup. We're not drinking bourbon. This is just holding it up so it doesn't fall off. um That's a taste test. His initial reaction is that's going to be like dog crap. Taste wise, I love French onion soup. Like a solid French onion soup is pretty unbelievable. Like Max and Erma's. I was just about to say Max and Erma's. Applebee's has a good one, weirdly enough. Who else has a good French I'm trying to think all the time ahead, who else has a good French onion soup? Max and Erma's is the best French onion soup, but they're not around. I don't think they're around anymore. Yeah. They're done. Well, we were in the home of Max and Erma's. The oldest one was in Ohio. Yeah. Did that one close too? I don't think there's yet one around here at all. the original one? Yeah. I don't think it's around here at all. Oh my goodness. I don't know. Did you ever go to Max and Irma's? Were you a Max and Irma's person? Yeah. We would, I I would go frequently. Yeah. I honestly, I think it was affordable. It was, it was a step up from Applebee's in the perspective of service. Right. Okay. It was a step up from service in an equal food manner in an equal price. That's my view of Max and Irma's. I felt like you had great food, but you had all the service in the world. And this is not to to hit on anybody, but I'll be honest with you, every time I've ever been to Applebee's, it's the worst service. Bob Evans might be a shade below it, right? On the service side of things. And I'm not calling people out, but that's a reality, I think. Next service was so cool, because all the stuff on the walls and hanging and yeah, that was pretty cool. It was like the normal version of a uh Cracker Barrel. Yeah. Yeah. about it. Like you walk into a Cracker Barrel that was going to get like a real burger and stuff like that, not eating breakfast. You could do dinner or breakfast at Cracker Barrel and dinner at Max and Irma's and you were in the Twilight Zone all day long. I liked it. Yeah, it was good. The one over there we'd frequent in Dublin by the, that's the ice cream place. Yeah. Yeah. The right there by graders used to be there. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know what you're talking about. And if you guys aren't here, that's your fault that you don't know what we're talking about, but nonetheless. Yeah, here we go. got through all that, I figured out what we're talking about tonight. You kind of led right with it. is dad problems. Dad problems. We've talked about men problems, husband problems. We've kind of beat that around a little bit, but I think it's good opportunity tonight to get back to some dad problems. yeah. So that's going to be the topic tonight. I'm glad that you're writing stuff down. Yeah, I'm writing stuff down. So I'm going through my mental note of what I see in a couple of groups that I'm in. Hundreds of thousands of guys and dads in a couple of groups. going to go through, I'm going to rattle off some. Some are going to be extremely controversial. Okay, but I'm going to rattle them off. You can pick and choose the thought process as far as things that you want to talk about. Okay, dad problem number one. We make $52,000 a year. As a family, my wife wants to stay at home because we have an eighth month old, eight month old. Okay. That's a dad problem. Dad problem. Number one, dad problem. Number two, I'm 26 years old. My uh girlfriend is 24 and we're expecting, how am I supposed to get through this? Right. Um, I really want a sports car, but I'm not really sure how to afford it. Um, should I get one to fit the kids or just buy whatever I want to buy? Right? of financial. Lots of financial stuff. I see a lot of financial stuffs in dad groups. That's one thing. And not that I want to just hit on that, but that's like a scenario. OK, we're going to go, this is like a completely different one, but something for the ladies to be on here for is, hey, my wife's pregnant. Intimacy has fallen off the face of the earth. Gotcha. A lot of wife. Pregnance and lot of finance. I think there's a lot of stuff that, know, because here's the deal. Here's the deal. I think that is the most common area that we struggle as dads, like the most overwhelming common area. It revolves around the intro to the dad world and then it revolves around the finances of dad. Yeah. And the reason I say that is because those are what worldly things we bear. Right. we bear the finances of the family and we bear like how to be a new dad and manage our new lives, especially as mom wants to, or we want them to be a stay at home parent or mom. um Sometimes we have a hard time valuing that based on how we've grown up, how our lifestyle was, how we want our lifestyle to be, how life is changing and stuff like that. So I think those are two huge conundrums that we run into. And there's a bunch more, right? A lot of it's always, I need to make more money for my family. I want to spend more time or should I take this job making more money? uh It's four tens, two hours away, but I'm going to make a ton more money and then people, but I'm not going to ever see my family. Right. And I'll be honest with you. The most wisdom I see is I see it two-folded. I see guys that are doing well in life and they're saying you can't get the time back. And I respect that answer. But on the other side, kind of say slightly, somehow, some way you need to work to get yourself ahead or we need to have some type of grind to figure it out. And that leads to a point of I've seen some movement recently and I'm finally starting to realize like, um, get up early in the morning, carve out, which I've talked about this and before carve out more time. have to make more time. We have to fabricate it. You need to take care of your body, take care of yourself, take care of mine, carve out more time. There's more time in the day. than what we realized because you don't need to operate on seven, eight, nine, 10 hours of sleep. If you want to go to the gym, take an hour to do that. You want to go, you need to go run some errands, do it late at night. Once the kids are going to bed, you want to do this. Like you don't have to do it all when the kids up and at them like, right. Like, so there is more time to be had. And if we start being selfish and why need to get this done and I want me time because I want to go play video games. I want me time because I want to, I don't know, read books or do 3D printing stuff or whatever, or I need to go work out this afternoon, that's pretty selfish, right? Don't blame it on the fact that your job is, you're having to decide between making more money in your job situation versus the other. That's my easy rant for it. um And again, coming from a place where obviously I set my own hours, I do my own stuff and everything, but I'll be honest with you, I've put in a lot of dues like... A whole lot of dudes. I've been grinding since I was 19. You know what mean? So it's not like this came overnight. It wasn't an overnight success. It was, I've been doing this a long time. back at you, Ryan. Yeah. I think of it from the, uh, perspective of the, uh, the spouse, the mom, the child and the dad, you know, and how they view the dad in those situations or the man in those situations because Yeah, we talked through like, hey, as a guy, this, this, this, and this, but we don't talk a lot about, about the, uh, the impact or the point of view of, of, of everyone watching you. Right. And so like the, getting up early and doing the things and working, you know, working out or doing whatever ahead of time before the kid gets up, before the wife gets up. Yup. Um, you know, think about it the opposite way. Like you're doing all that, you're taking all that selfish time, something that I've tried to do lately, for example, Like I like to walk like in the evenings. I like to just walk. And every time I'm messing up your walking time right now. No, is it? No, it's not evening yet. No, I mean, I already walked. Oh, OK. I not in the rain. It would rain today. So I got it. Got it. Got it. Sorry. You threw that one out there. Wait a minute. It's kind of evening right now. Anyway, got my walking. You like to walk in. Oh, you walk in inside on the walking pad. No, no, not normally. I don't want to. But I will. Yeah. OK. All right. Yeah. If it's raining, I will. Or if it's early in the morning, whatever. You're sidetracking the whole conversation. Okay. Just curious. I listen. Sorry. Listen, listen, listen, listen, Linda. Uh, yeah. Like I need my sleep. I know you sleep one hour a night, but okay. I sleep six hours. Um, but if yeah. So you know, it's an, you can do these things and not exclude those people. Right. I mean, there's an opportunity there. It's not one for one or just like, if I do this, then I can't do that. I think a lot of times we think of it that way. We think kind of in the selfish mindset, but actually you could do all these things together. You you can invite people to walk with you. can invite people to get up early with you, maybe to do to work out. Maybe that's not an opportunity, but maybe something else that you can do, you know, as a family or early in the morning. What do you have to do to do that? You you got to encourage them to, to join you one, but I think that there's a lot of opportunity in those other hours. I'm not saying like kind of a, we all need some quote unquote alone time every once in a while, right? It's nice to have time to kind of get yourself ready or get, you know, get up and kind of put some time in, but it's also a opportunity I think to say, you know, these are the things that I want to do for me. I would love for you to be a part of it. I would love for you to join me. Um, whether that's morning, evening, or you're adding a few extra hours to the clock, um, whatever something Amber and I have been trying to do lately is um reestablish our time like as husband and wife after, you know, like Parker goes to bed. Oh, that. And yeah, I like the recent. Yeah. When the kids go to bed, you reestablish it. I like that. Yeah. Because I mean, I think that I think that you you get into a situation where it's like, all right, everything's going on. It's for us. Nine o'clock getting the kid to bed. Better get you home. I know. Getting the kid to bed and then we're just going to bed. Yeah, I'm with you. And then that's it. Like the night to wrap until the next morning and trying to find some time where like we can do something intentional like getting in the word or just like drinking a cup of tea, like something that we're doing together, writing like journaling. Amber does a lot of journaling. I'm not really into that, but she's been really into that. So I kind of journal like I have a little thing that I wrote. I literally can I tell you a story real quick? I found a journal. I started journaling a year ago. How many pages did you make? I'm not, I'm not going to say a year ago, like today or this week or something. I found that journal or Amber was cleaning out a closet and found it. I said, wait, how long have we lived in this house? Um, but I had written like, five or six, uh, pages, five or six solid pages. And I like my first, uh, my first page was like, can't wait to do this. Like this is going to be it. Yeah. Here we go. And six days later I never saw it again and I found it a year later. Love it. But anyhow I did start I did write a couple more pages. I said I'm restarting I'm recommitted and I got two pages in. That was like a week ago. But I did you're admitting that though right. Yeah I do think it is interesting because I did read back some of those things that I had said and were you like man I was an idiot or a wow. OK I probably should have done that. Did you have what kind of internal thoughts that broke through your head when you're reading it yourself? I actually I kind of wish I would have kept doing it. ah That's why you haven't done it in a week. Like the momentum. Like I could feel the momentum when I was reading it. I said, wow, these are good thoughts. Like I understand what I'm saying here. uh It was a good outlet, I think, for me then. Especially because I think at that point I was in between jobs or I lost my job. Something like that had happened to us. looking for something else and that was something that I was doing. um And yeah, wow, we got way out there. But kind of back to the point is, you know, finding that time. I agree. I know what I took encouraged to get help you get back there, I think is finding the time and encouraging time of one another to do stuff, not just singling your singling yourself out to prioritize and become selfish. right? In essence, what it is. So do stuff with a wife, do stuff with a kid, do stuff with the family, do stuff as a family, you know, also have your due time. I think you time is super important, but yeah, I I Right. Sure. I also agree with it too. Yeah. And I agree with your point. Like, and some of it, you're like, all right, kids, wife, whatever, they're not getting up for two more hours. I'll use these two hours to knock out things that are important to me. Like that is that that or that. Like both of them are good opportunities, I would say, to kind of manage manage those situations. Let me add something. Let me add something to that, because there's a reason I do what I do. um I became very selfish and I was held a grudge for a while of towards Beth, like weirdly enough, um getting up and working out. She doesn't like to work out. um I mean, it's OK. That's not her cup of tea. Her exercise is whatever she wants it to be and however she does. It's just her life. That's just her MO. And I'm OK with that, whatever. And I was very frustrating. I would hold a grudge to like, I'm going and working out. And why don't you go work out with me? And why you do this? And I mean, there was a period where I think I went to the gym for like two years straight every single day. And I felt very like I become selfish of that. aspect and like looking at my wife like I've wanted you to go and you won't go and all that stuff and it's okay for them to not want to do stuff even though you've asked them to. So understand A, it could take a couple times. B, it might be a a no, right? Like a heck no scenario. I'm not interested in that, but I'm going to throw out like a curve ball to this situation. Be interested before you go seeking and requesting, be interested in their stuff first. Like don't and this is not a give and take scenario. Like, well, I did this for you. You have to do this for me because again, it may be something they're not interested in. That's OK. That's completely fine. Beth hates my bourbon collection. I don't need her to drink bourbon. Right. You know what I mean? Like and I know that sound that I jokingly say that like she doesn't drink at all. know what I mean? Like and so it's OK that she doesn't have the interest. But I tell you what? She's always interested in, she will not hesitate to spark a conversation about it. Right? So I appreciate that give and take perspective. And I work to try to be interested in her stuff. And we find things like playing games. I don't read it all. I don't journal. We play games. We still work together. Because we do spend an exorbitant amount of time together. Just being in each other's presence all the time. think just that late... The laziness of being in presence is what matters to us too. But that's the thing, right? I think there's multiple facets to that. Don't get slighted over, well, I just offered you this. You didn't want to do it. You don't want to go hiking for me? I love hiking. Maybe I hate the outdoors. You know, it's okay. You know what I mean? So it's like, don't be bent out of shape over that. oh This is a marriage. This is a long haul. This is the forever haul. This is a... more than a relationship. A relationship is not a marriage. This is a bond between two people that are going to work through what they have going on. Go ahead. You mentioned something that reminded me of the sermon this week at church when you were mentioning, you could be in situations, many people might be where you're with your spouse or kids or whatever for long periods of time. And it was mentioned at church this week. that so many people are in the same room together, but they're not together. Like you're doing something else. You're doing something on your own time or whatever it is. And it strikes me that how many times that I kind of like reflected on that and looked back on that. like, yeah, we're together, let's say two, three hours in the evening. But what are we doing in those two to three hours of that evening? uh And when you think about those things, you're like, Yeah, we're in the same area. We're in the same room. Yep. You know, but are we actually spending time together? Boom. And by spending time, that can be that's pretty loose, right? You could say, well, I was here. I was nearby. Well, as a man, as a man, that's that is enough. Like, theory, that is enough because our mind is either shutting down for the day and we're just like it's like winding down. And I think men's minds will wind down all the way and then we're just done. I really think that occurs with men, but it takes a long time and as we're winding down, we feel like we're still doing it. We're going through the motions. We're making that stuff happen. Women, I think, wind down but stay at like a weird level. We drop into the hibernation mode and we've just depleted energy, right? And women, I think, never get to that point. And we have to figure out how to meet them somewhere in between the two because they can't always, they're not always just going to be deleted. Have you ever seen your wife just like pass out? Like just of sheer mental exhaustion? Men don't have this like sheer mental exhaustion thing that they can go through. I've never seen it, right? Like we have the physical exhaustion, even though that's wearing the mental and the the brunt, the physicalness of the world. But watching a woman go through physical exhaustion, like I've never been, like it's so wild to watch my wife, like she'll look like everything's fine and she'd be like, Hey, I'm tired. And then like, it's like 10 steps later, all of a sudden she's like passed out in the bed and she's, and I could just, I could just feel it. Like it's like, that was it. You know what I mean? And we don't have that. We don't have that ability, but again, that's how relationships work. That's how men and women are different. That's how we have to figure out how to meet with one another. And do I get mad when that happens? No, I'm like, Hey, I gained a couple hours. I'm going to make sure she's okay. I'm going to run back. And like, I take advantage of that. I'm not mad that she's not spending time with me. She needs that. I'm going to support her in the rest and the experience that she has versus being uncivil about it and being like, Oh man, I really wanted to play games tonight. I really wanted you to support me. Right? You know, Yeah, I think I think everything we're saying all the above it's like all the above right everything can be true Everything can be right everything can be part. It's about the intentionality and and what you're doing with that time and other people now Let's not get too stuck on the wives because I also on the kids Okay, because it's a dad podcast. It's a dad podcast. Why not? What our routines I know are a little bit different with our kids at nighttime I My son is also a little bit older than your oldest, but it doesn't really change the fact that there's not much time at the end of the day, right? You're kind of, you get home, let's say you get home at like five, six o'clock some nights, you're doing dinner, you hit about seven o'clock. For us, bedtime is there at nine. So we're already down to basically a two hour window. If you just... in that two hour window, if you just spent time doing something with your kid, you might have gotten three hours out of a 24 hour day with your kid or kids. what talk to me a little bit and then I'll kind of get back to mine, but talk to me a little bit about your routine and that and on either side of the coin, right? And weekends kind of aside, but uh like week to week, day to day, like what does that look like and how Intentional are you with spending that time and what time is that? Is there any time to to do that? oh You know, I had a conversation yesterday. I went to get a um tea at a tea spot. I to get a tea. It's caffeinated, of course. You went to a tea like where you uh get undressed and go in a sauna. Not like a like a shake and tea spot. I've never heard. I don't know. Well. You don't drink energy drinks or you're not a person. would. Yeah. Anyway, this is only for caffeine. Yeah, but they have like these pop up meal replacement shakes, like meal replacement shakes and stuff like that. What's the place called? uh Hilliard City Nutrition. OK, go on. Anyways, so I went there and we she's you just sidetracked me. OK, you're there. uh Yeah, so I was talking to the girl that actually owns it was there and she was doing the stuff that day and. We were, I always talked to her. I mean, they're all friendly people and stuff like that. And I was the only person that walked, I was in there at the time. And so I said to her, or she asked where my son was. And I was like, and she goes, haven't seen him in a while. And I was like, yay, he's, know, pre-K, he's got his thing going on, he's five days a week. Unfortunately, you know, I don't get to bring him in anymore because I used to take him with me and he used be a riot. He'd walk in and all that jazz. And, um, And she was like, Oh, I seeing him. And she hasn't seen my daughters anymore. You know, because again, it's school time this summer. They'll go with me to get one and what not. have it. They'll make a kid's one for them and stuff and they enjoy it. And she asked where they went to school and I said it and she goes, I went to a private school as well. And, and we were talking about like the benefits of private school and the benefits of all that stuff. And I said, one of my favorite things is while it drives me, you know what crazy every single day, because the kids hate each other and hate riding next to each other in a car. Like you have one kid, three kids sitting next to each other. It's like they're they're constant. You're in my space. You're in my space. You're I mean, like literally elbows are flying. They're swinging fists or yelling. They're all the time. It's just it is like a battleground hitting the car. But I thoroughly enjoy that time getting in the car. And I get 30 minutes every morning, 30 minutes every night. with them, picking them up and taking them home. That is a dedicated time that I work on. mean, every once in a while I have phone calls that I'll have to take because I'm working, especially on the afternoon one and whatnot, but that's a big thing. Secondly, I'm pretty clear with the kids. Now, our work life is a lot different than yours. You have your job, which is more nine to five, we'll call it. I mean, I'm sure you have other things that pop up and whatnot, but that's not normal as is mine today. I stopped working at 545. when I got the kids home, they were by themselves ish from 430 till 545. And I was still working because I was like behind trying to get stuff done, stuff that needs my attention. And I've I've realized that my kids and it kind of wrapped this back up. I want for my kids to be dedicated time. And I know this that's that's the word you just asked me. How do you do that? I want us to be laser focused. Right? If I'm doing something with you, you know daddy's phone's out, not like away. You know that I'm going to give you the next 10 minutes is your 10 minutes. The next 30 minutes is your 30 minutes. Right? Again, I have to spread it amongst three kids so that makes it even more even more of a puzzle piece. But they would rather see me for that 30 minutes than have me on my phone working, moving, managing all this stuff over a three hour period. And so I encourage any and all dads when you're going through stuff, it's not about the cell phone. It's not about what's happening. It's about the physical dedicated time. I guarantee you can take 10 minutes, start with 10, then go to 20, then go to 30. And then you're going to find yourself, this is out of the picture even more. And you are laser focused. You're on the floor. You have nothing that is in your way. And that accounts for cooking dinner. That accounts for cleaning the house. That accounts for everything else. We have to set aside that stuff and dedicate the time with the kids. Like I don't make them clean to play or play to clean. We don't intermingle those things. You know what mean? We don't intermingle that. like, like if I'm cooking dinner, I'm cooking dinner. I'm trying not to play at the same time. I mean, I have fun, but I'm trying not to like be in both because when I'm in both dinner takes much longer. They get less of me. And now it's a problem because they're frustrated and we didn't get to do what we got we wanted to do. You know what I mean? So it's like if I can knock out what I need to knock out and prioritize what I need to prioritize, we get to pull everything back and then refocus, which is sitting and doing whatever project, whatever craft, whatever they want to do. They get dad, all ears, all eyes, all hands, all feet, all of me. Can I tell you a mistake I made when it comes to you can do whatever you want to do? Uh-oh. And spending time with people. I'm going to tell you, but after we do this uh review. segue it. Segue. So before we hop into something new, how is this? Let's go with a solid 0 to 10. What is it? If it wasn't warm. OK, assume it's ice cold. OK. Just assume it's ice cold. If it's ice cold, I'm giving it pretty high. I mean, 9 and 1.5. 6.3. Really? It's not what I want it to be. It's bitter. Which kind do you have? thing. It's bitter. I'm a big strawberry pineapple guy. It's bitter to me. I don't know why. I don't get a very good sweet flavor. The coconutty. I'm not getting the flavors. I think we have two different. We have two different drinks. I think I'm broken. Yeah, I don't have any. I don't have any bitter taste. Yeah, I got like I got like the strawberries were like on their last leg and they still chopped them up. They want the sweet ones. And it's really and I got the core of the pineapple. You know what I'm saying? you the bad piece. Yeah. feel like I got the bad stuff here, but I see where they're going. So what I could do is add more rum or strawberries into it, and I think I'd be OK. No, I don't think you should probably do that. But I mean, I think you miss character. mean, I could taste the rum. I could taste the pineapple juice. I can taste the strawberry. You can't taste all of that. I can. It's very bitter. It's just very bitter. I'm getting like... Rhine core. Yeah, it's not very sparkling. Yeah, there's something off. You know what? The sparkling may have something to do with it. Oh, it expired like no, it did not. These are fresh off the boat. Fresh off the boat. Which boat did it come from? Because if it came from the Strait of Hormutes, it's who knows how long it was. Who knows? Anyways, it'll be good. We're going to make them ice cold and we're going to change the maybe that's the issue. Maybe it's the temperature. Yeah, it could be. Could be a slushy too, who knows? All right, so today we have Lay's Wavy French Onion Soup. This is made with real potatoes, no artificial flavors, no colors from artificial sources. It looks like a French onion soup on there. It says savor, cheese, and rich, crispy crunch. m How many chips per serving? That's what I always look at. Eight servings per container, 13 chips. Okay, that's good. I really decent, right? These should get a solid crunch. This is the wavy version. So I expect them will be a little crispier. I the color kind of like almost like a barbecue feel. But yeah, yeah. So we got a flavor to it or color and Chris, we got some red, white and blue. They're pulling out the 250th America does not have the color of that doesn't have the color. Yeah. Chip is non colored in the way you. So it's not showing us exactly what we it is definitely misleading. Yeah, definitely misleading. They're big chips. They're massive. definitely crispy. Some discoloration there, which makes me nervous because is there seasoning on parts of it and not on other? Well, and I'm worried about that. Did all the seasoning fall to the bottom? Is this going to be a miss season? Do I shake the bag now? I don't know. All right, let's go for it. Did you get a seasoned chip? minimal. Minimal. I'm going for another one. I'm put the seasoning on my tongue though. I'm about say there's no, I mean... Give it a shaking. Close back up and No, I found one. Okay, look at that. Completely different color. Find a really dark one. Nope. Which that's disappointing, by the way. It's already disappointing if you have to find the chip. That better. All right. So, wow. One to 10 and it's on a French onion soup and it's made with real potatoes, by the way. I don't know if that saves it or not. Um, this is, I'm going to tell you before I give my review, this is going to be my lowest review product. not taste like French onion soup to you. No. OK. It's like a salt brick. Like French onion soup has that salt taste, so I get that. Yeah, because the cheese is not very flavorful. It's real salty cheese and then the bread and then like it's just it's just melted. But that's the way French onion soup tastes. Mm Yeah. Well, no. Let's be honest. Yeah. The salt. mean, very salty. It's like more sodium and probably this chips and we've had all week. It's just not it's just not doing it for me. So I'm going to do two and a half point seven. Yeah, it was low. It's low. It needs some help. I think just because the inconsistency of the flavor is where I'm going. If I had like a couple of chips that had a lot of flavor to it, I'm not going to go fishing. um Plus, I'll throw this out there. Are you the kind of guy where you as a kid and you do it as an adult, you put chips on a sandwich, like a good turkey sandwich with mayonnaise, chips, cheese, Doritos. I love a chip that can go on a sandwich but not destroy the flavor. flavor profile of the sandwich. Right. Like this would be like adding onion to a chip to a sandwich. Right. It's all theory and sauce. But like like Doritos give it that cheesy ranchy flavor. Depending on what you get, you get that like extra layer profile that comes through. it's like, you don't choose a crappy chip for your sandwich. Right. Well, I'm not going to waste crappy chips on my sandwich. This wouldn't do it. Yeah, I would be like, it tastes like a potato. The seasoning is just too inconsistent. And I'm wondering if it's because of the. I don't know the way. Yeah, it's just too inconsistent. It's for FIFA. I'm going to be honest. It's probably because they really don't know what they're eating. Oh, and there's no artificial flavors, no artificial colors, no artificial anything, no wonder. Nothing. But we were also we also figured that out before. That's not real. So, yeah, savory, cheesy and rich. Don't know about it. I'll give it. I'll stick to the number I gave. The only thing it is a savory in a sense of it's like I could probably only eat a handful of them because it feels like it's like, Oh, would you eat the whole serving 13 chips or whatever? I mean, I don't bro. I could eat it. Every bag of chips. If as long as it's half good. But if you have the choice, is it, are you choosing this again at the store? Yeah. Nope. All right. So guys, that was it. That was it. What do you got? Where are you? Where are you at? Oh mistakes that I made giving my son so the other day I think it was last weekend. I said Let's do whatever you want to do. I'm thinking football. I'm thinking Maybe he wants to play like uh his switch game, know something we'll do something together and he chooses monopoly monopoly. And I sat there for a minute and thought, how do I get out of this? do I, how do I, how do I leave this situation? I mean, at that point I was like, I will even play chess potentially to get out of monopoly. Couldn't do it. I had told it like it was, it was a done deal. And my son, when it's a, at that point it was over. The game was over. was, it was a whole thing. So anyhow, I got sucked into monopoly. It ended up being like, uh, we never finished it by the way. was about two and a half hour game. Couldn't finish it. He wanted to be banker. He wanted to be property manager. He wanted to be everything. And I'm getting screwed left and right. Like I keep seeing him like grabbing extra 500 and put it in his pile. I'm like, I don't know. Did you pass go? No, I got a chance card. I something about five hours that I've never seen that, know, before he he's doing it all. He's picking up my chance cards and reading them as if it's legit. I'm like, let me see that, you know, and it's, it's something I have to pay him $50 when really I should have been receiving $50 from the Anyhow, it was a big mistake. You allowed him to do that to you? I just, I just let it go. I just was like, okay, let's see. I think he thinks that he knows what he's doing. I could obviously come back in the game if I wanted to. Anyhow, he got a boardwalk park place, start putting hotels at that point. said it's bedtime. But anyhow, sometimes you make mistakes as a parent and one of them is playing Monopoly. What's your favorite game, by the way, to play with your kids as far as board games go? I'll answer it. OK, Catan Jr. is fantastic for kids. Never played it. Tons of fun. Catan Jr. is fantastic. There's a couple other ones, but the kids love that right now. Carter loves it at four, almost five years old. Almost five years old. He can actually play it really well. um Here's what I'll tell you. Here's where you went wrong. This is just from dad to dad. I tell my children I'm going to beat the pulp out of them in every board game until they figure out how to win without cheating. And I let them know that's going to win every game. Like I'm going you want to play me. You want to play in the game. I'm going to teach you how you need to play. And I want you to I want you to go through that. I know. And I know it sounds really crazy. That's super harsh. Let your kids win a little bit and stuff like that. I don't let them cheat. I don't cheat myself. Right. But I play them like I'm playing 35 year old adults sitting around the same table and I'm about to take their house and poker. So I used to be that way. Uh-oh. But my son's almost 10 now. So it's not as fun. Beating him? It's not as fun to, no, it's not as fun to do that. Like be like, I'm going to crush you. Why? Because he knows how to play the game now. So it's not as fun. That's good though. Yeah, but I'm saying before like that's a little bit more fun when they're a little bit like they're like, I don't know. And I think I'm to beat you. And they're completely lost and they have no idea. Once they figure out the game, it's not as enjoyable to just go in and crush them because could I crush him in Monopoly? Yes, but it's not as fun. Now, why I'm asking the question is I don't it's not to me. The enjoyment factor is not winning. The enjoyment factor is watching my kid struggle through. something that is uncontrollable because I guarantee you when they get into the real world, monopoly is real. The life of monopoly is real and what we deal with every single day. There's a lot of unfair stuff that happens. There's a lot of crap that's out of your control and I want them to be able to work through that. want them to work. I was watching a video the other day and I'll have to send it to you. Dad and his son, I don't know, he's got this massive basement, right? This massive basement or like extra garage or whatever, like big enough that they're like hitting a wiffle ball in it. I mean, and it looks like a pole barn, right? But it's not that big. It's just like a huge basement. Neither her nor there. This kid is Carter size. Yeetal, right? Like super small. uh He's going to be like a phenom. Like he, the dad is just and he is, pow, you know, I mean, he's like ripping it like the kid can hit a ball and he can throw it. Like I said, it's both ways. It's both ways. So he started, the dad started to purposefully, instead of like, how do I put this? Like giving him easier pitches in a certain sense. uh Not easier, but throwing easier strikes for him to hit. He's, he's been working on striking him out and how he reacts. Yeah. And So I'm like watching this video and this was like after two weeks, he's been like slowly implementing this and not telling his son like how he's doing that. But every time his statement is, his statement is like it went from, I'm so mad, like the kid, I mean, he's like five years old throwing his bat down. He's going to get his glove. He's like super mad at five years old. I'm like, dude, you're, you are a child and infant playing this game. Like that means zero. Right. Why are you getting so frustrated? But that this kid is a gamer, right? Like, I a gamer and it's evolved. from BOOM STRIKE OUT. wants to get upset, walks over, sets his bat down, takes a deep breath, picks up his glove, takes a deep breath, walks to where they're pitching. The dad is walking the other way and he's just watching him. He's not, he's not egging him on. And then he gets, he gets over there and he gets set. He goes, that's exactly how you do it, son. That is over with. This is where you're at right now. You have the next job, the next responsibility, the next thing to do. That is what you have to do. He goes, you can't control what just happened. What just happened is over with. You tried your hardest. You tried your best. Let go. And I was like, Whoa, hit me like a ton of bricks. You know what I mean? And again, I want my kids to understand that and playing games with them. They have to get that. Like the amount of breakdowns we have. And I tell them, it's what's not fair is it's not fair. Right. And one day they're going to beat me. Yeah. And I mean, like, sucks. Like, you're better at it than me. Like, it's good, but I'm going to keep playing. Doesn't mean I'm going to give up and not play with them anymore. I think that's why Laurie and Randy don't play games with us anymore because we beat them all the time. Like, right? Like Beth and I are gamers, like, that. And we enjoy winning, not to be mean, but to enjoy the win. You know, it's exciting. It's fun. We're not. Yeah. I don't know. That's a whole tangent to the scenario. Yeah. I'm coaching right now for the school, um, uh, flag football for the boys and girls coed team. And that's been a whole unique situation, but the best moments on doing that is not necessarily. Coaching. My son, although we have a unique situation right now because we don't have enough kids, but it's when other coaches are coaching in and I can see that he's getting it, understanding it not getting frustrated. And then he can replicate that, you know, multiple times and that's cool. And in. He is really cool to actually dad moment this weekend because he scored a touchdown. Oh, that's cool. On my team. we have rotating the kids because we don't have enough kids. So each coach kind of gets a new group of kids every week. So he's not always with me. Like one week he's with another coach. Some weeks he's with me, et cetera. And but he was on my team this week and he got to keep. He called the play and he uh scored. And it was just a cool it was just a cool situation on against one of their uh fastest players on the other team. The other player actually slipped as he's trying to grab his flag and Parker like juked around him and ran into the end zone. So cool moment. But anyhow, yeah. And uh I don't know. I just think that. uh Yeah, great opportunity. Dad, dad problems, dad success stories. All of the above. Yeah, we can go on and on, I think, for days and just how to do that. I don't think my way is 100 % right. I'm sure your way is not. You know what mean? I think we all work through and we all go through seasons of life. So what we're trying to teach our kids, I think, back to mine, where the moral of the story is, is make things teachable moments. it doesn't always have to be teachable. If you want it to be learning, it's a learning moment. Right. And learning is not teaching. Learning is we're learning how to play the game and we're going to have fun through the learning and we're trying something new in the game and we're experiencing the game together. You know what mean? I think there's a difference in that scenario versus the other scenario, which is like, all right, we're to teach you how to do something and we're going to like, it's like how to do a new math problem or a new, you know what I mean? So it's like, think trying to figure that out and working through those things definitely matters. But you know where I'm at with my kids and where we're really working with is like handling defeat is extremely difficult and in today's world we are taught to handle defeat um with you know blame to others instead of accepting reality like we lost or we didn't we lost or whatever it might be or saying it some by somebody's situation was better than ours or whatever it might be and that's not I mean does it happen yeah it does but I look at it this way. When you have a bad pitch in baseball or softball, you still had three other pitches or four other pitches or five other pitches, right? You shot three other bats or four other bats or five other bats. You had ground balls that were hit to you or you had an opportunity to catch a ball. You had an opportunity to root on your teammates and encourage others and pick up bats and be a great teammate. Like it's so much beyond a single play in a single situation, right? You know, it's funny. We look at highlights and we look at uh failures and highlights and stuff of the Super Bowl games and, and, and playoffs that are going on. But what that doesn't tell you is the team had a ample opportunity throughout the remainder remainder of the game to score and succeed, but they failed at all those. oh And you only see, it only comes down to that one highlight. Imagine watching a Super Bowl game that comes down to a touchdown at the end to take the win with an extra point or a go going for two when in reality, they had, they didn't have turnovers, but they punted the ball five times that game. Yeah. It came down to the last one because it came to the last one, but you had ample opportunity, every other possession. oh know what I mean? And the thing that was blamed was the play before when the ref flag. Yeah, that's the thing. It was only like, man, that's pass interference. They let them play whatever, whatever. That's why we lost the game. That's why we lost the game. No, it wasn't. It was, we pointed the ball seven times this game guys. We got an end zone twice. We punted it seven times. We didn't play defense like we could have every single time. held them. We didn't hold them to field goals. We let them have, they had so many touchdowns, whatever it might be. Or guess what? They actually just fricking kick butt tonight. oh I mean, at some point in time, we have to admit the realization that people are out there to be better, do better and kick our teeth in. Right? The competition is real. It's it's it's it's real. Yeah, I just wrote this down and I don't necessarily believe the statistic that I wrote down. I just kind of made it up. But I wrote down when you were talking about that, I just put ninety nine percent of life is fair. And what I mean by that is that when you're in equal opportunity positions, like whatever, like you want to use football or whatever. OK, those guys on the field playing that sport or that game for them, ninety nine percent of that experience in that two, three hours is going to be fair. Right? or totality of the game is fair. Yeah. Yeah. So 99 % of that time is going to be fair or any situation. It doesn't have to be like sports, but think about your work or your money, your finances, all those kinds of things. When you kind of like play the odd, you know, put certain people together. Yeah. Okay. 99 % of your opportunity that you have within this situation is going to be fair. I'm not saying that everyone has equal opportunities to do different things. That's not what I'm talking about here. But we like to blame the 1 % or we like to blame the other guy or that situation or they're doing that because they had this in their life or that in their life and they don't know that, oh but by the way, they also had this, this and this that you didn't have, you know, in all those situations. And I think that we just too easy to... uh to blame the 1 % you know blame that 1 % of unfairness and make that the focal point of everything else around you know so I'm not even sure we got to this part of the conversation but I don't know if it's a 99 % I think people the viewers are going to look at and I'm not correcting you here. get caught up on the 99 % but that's what saying I want to say that don't get caught up on the 99 I 100 % agree with where you're going with this I don't think it's 99 % don't get caught on that caught up on the understand the theory behind it is that when you take a totality of a game, it's fair, right? It's fair. I think everybody has some version of an equal opportunity because some people have more strikes that were strikes, more balls that were balls. Like it's, it all becomes relative at the end of the day. There are only a limited amount of things that are truly unfair, right? Like gambling at the casino. You know what I'm saying? You're leaving it up to a machine that is unfair that is set and rigged against you to lose. But even in that situation, everyone they're gambling has a fair opportunity to 99%. uh It's the same. The confines of those people or whatever you're doing, like the guy beside you just won 10 grand on a slot. You could have won 10 grand on that slot. yeah, just think it's the blame game sometimes. You kind of try to find. the problem or it's because of this or because of that. And I'll kind of like chime in to leave. think that's why teaching the kids or you're looking at yourself or being a dad and kind of circling back to dedicating time with the kids and stuff like that, we can only control the move and the moves that we have going on that are in front of us at any given time. Right. And that is why not That's why taking it seriously and managing them to our highest of our ability is the most important thing we can do instead of just sitting back and like letting it go and stuff like that. Because the more you do the, the woe is me, the, you know, I'll just kind of roll with the punches, kind of let this be the more opportunity for you to not have an opportunity, right? You have 24 hours in a day. If you soak up 18 of those or 17 of them, and then you forget that you still have to eat and you got to get all the stuff done and then you're running late and then all of sudden you're speeding down the road and then you get a ticket. Now you're late for the thing that you're done. Now you're doing this. Now you're No, it's not. What was me? Right. It's what happened way back down the road that then caused you to get all caught up in this situation. There's a lot of pieces to it, so I don't know what I got. Anything else? Any last thoughts for tonight? Today, whenever you guys listen to it to podcast? No, no. I don't have anything else. I'm not sure we covered a physical topic ish other than men problem, dad problems and stuff. I think we talked about a lot of different things tonight, brought up some pretty unique conversations. Hopefully the 3d printer in the background didn't bother you guys too much as it has finished and it's wrapped up. It's item. Hopefully my pausing didn't screw it up. We'll find out in just a minute. If we completely. If we wasted it. I'm going to be so mad if I wasted like and. podcast episode nonetheless. But yeah, I appreciate you guys listening and staying tuning into this. Like we're trying our hardest to continue to put out solid content for you guys. We're going to keep in and doing this. Like we're getting the views, we're getting the listeners. You know, really where we're realizing is men still suck it at wanting to talk about this stuff. So finding people and we haven't really pushed for it recently either. But finding people to talk on the podcast is extremely difficult and having people that are committed. We've had a ton of committed people that are now uncommitted or, you know, lost traction with them and, know, they were decent or big names. And you know, what's funny though is, and I'll circle out and end it on this. was watching, um, if you, if you don't watch it, you should watch the don't be sour podcast. Um, max tuning does it. Um, dudes, a multi multimillionaire after selling sour strips. And I actually tuned in to watch. He had like a big news update thing and a dude's got money just pouring out of his eyeballs and I'm happy for him. You know, in the perspective, like I like dudes crushed it and he's made so much money in his life and not, and he's happy, right? Like he's got all kinds of stuff going for him, which is great, but he talked about his podcast and they've had so many things and I don't know if he said in his podcast, in the video that he was talking about his podcast today, he was like, we were so many episodes in 65 episodes in or whatever it was a hundred episodes in. I'm not sure. And he goes, I had already talked with all these crazy, cool people. He goes, but our podcast is just me and my couple friends sitting around talking now. He goes, I thought I had talked to everybody, but I realized that the podcast that is doing well is just me and a couple friends sitting around having a conversation and shooting the breeze. They're like forever long too. If you haven't watched it, I like I've seen their podcast like two, two hours long. Wow. Right. I mean, and talk about everything, everything, everything. I don't know. I don't know how you have so much time to talk about so much stuff. But like, well, if you have that much money, I it doesn't matter. But like, it's just, I just find it interesting. And he talks like heavily about that. And I, know, it just, it's just a interesting thing to look at and have that perspective. I, know, there was this, there was this drive to just want and need to get all these people on here. And I still want that. I still want dads to talk about that issues and dad things and that problems and good dad stuff and yada, yada, yada. Right. But I think and the feedback I'm getting on this is we're doing a good job, too. Well, there was a dog on two episodes. It was a dog and the dog killed it. uh crushed it. She crushed it and had liver. I had her liver bites or whatever those were. The beef liver. So I I don't think that I could agree more. I do want to say, yes, I think that sometimes in the appetite ah to try to do something more, do something different, to create something, um you really lose sight of what you're actually trying to do. You have your idea. You have like, this is the mission. This is what we're trying to achieve. to do that, we need to do this, this and this. And then sometimes when this, this and this doesn't happen, you kind of just revert back to like, hey, what are we ultimately trying to do? What are we trying to accomplish? And uh I think that that's accurate that uh ultimately you could do this by yourself with a dog, right? I mean, really, really... uh If you have to, she's not very talkative, but I'm saying if you have the passion to do something and you have the ability to do it, uh, then you can do it and you can create success in that way. Because if it's, if it's something that people need to hear, want to hear, want to be a part of, like they will be, regardless of the guests, regardless of the, you and I spent time. We're like, Hey, like here's all these guests. But then there was one guest in particular where we're like, man, this one's gonna, we feel like this one's gonna crush it. And it ended up being, I hate to say it, but it ended up being like our worst episode as far as like viewership goes. And we didn't really get anything out of it. Like there was no, there was nothing from that. And I think that that's actually a lesson that we're kind of taught. These kind of God moments that we've spoken about before. It's like, you're chasing this, but that's not really what I want you to do. Absolutely. And it's having the conversations we had tonight. Right. And in full proof perspective, it's that I think. And I agree with you. And we'll stay true to the course. Right. And where we're at still want people still want people with real raw and relevant conversations. Right. To join the What's Up Dad podcast and be on here and have it. So we want that. It's not that we're going away from that. If you know if you know somebody, please tag them and all that stuff. And if you have questions or you want feedback, you want us to talk about things or You don't want us to talk about stuff. Let us know. Like we want the feedback. We want the information so we can continue to put out solid content for you. So that's all I got. All right. All right. Well, I'm out of this. So cheers. Thanks everybody. And we'll see you on the flip side. Check it out.