DadMode: Parenting, Gaming, Streaming, Life
"DadMode" is a podcast where two gaming-loving dads discuss everything from live streaming to fatherhood in a humorous and relatable way. Join Josh aka Moorph and Bearded Nova as they share gaming adventures and parenting anecdotes, offering a unique blend of entertainment and insight for fellow gamers with kids.
DadMode: Parenting, Gaming, Streaming, Life
One Day They're Kids, The Next They're Making Coffee Runs
Josh aka Bearded_Nova
I'm from Australia and am what you would call a father who games. I have 5 kids so not as much time to game as I used to. But I still game and stream when I can. So come join me on Twitch in chat as we chill out.
Business Inquiries: Bearded-n0va@aussiebb.com.au
Josh aka Moorph
I'm a US-based husband and father of two boys. I work full-time and have been a content creator since 2000. I'm a YouTube partner, Twitch and LiveSpace streamer who founded a content creation coaching company called Elev8d Media Group (elev8d.media). I'm a blogger, streamer, podcaster, and video-er(?).
Business Inquiries: josh@elev8d.media
Turning off normal human male mode. Switching to dad mode. Welcome in to dad mode With your hosts Bearded, Nova and Morph.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, my older boy. He suddenly became like a mini adult. It's really weird.
Speaker 2:He's acting all responsible. We had some of my younger son's friends came over, yeah, and he volunteered to make the lunch for them, yeah, and he's like reminding me to do things. Um, it's, it's. I'm like who are you? Where did this come from it?
Speaker 2:It's it started slowly over the past like few months, but all of a sudden, like I'm starting to see all of the signs of it now and I don't know like he wants to do more adult things, like with me, like he's only 13, but I decided to teach him how to drive anyway, like not in the road, like parking lots and stuff, just to get hang of it. And like we go someplace. He's like I want to get a coffee like you. Or it's like I want to go get sushi instead of like a hamburger at mcdonald's. You know like, yeah, he wants to do like all this adult stuff now and it's like, oh, okay, that's yeah, cool, I guess. So I I don't, I don't know like, have your kids, did they like, did they have this? All of a sudden, they were acting mature or have. I'm assuming this.
Speaker 3:I do find that it's it's something that you can't, you can't prepare for it. Just, it's like a light switch randomly turns on. You know, someone's just going to their brain and flicked a little switch. It's like, oh fuck, sorry, we forgot to turn this on a few years ago, right, yeah, and you've got this whole different. I want to say it is. It's completely different, child for a sense, for a bit, but it's not permanent. That's that's the part I find they still. It's like, it's like a faulty wire that's in there every so often it just flickers off for a second.
Speaker 3:There's the dumb ass. I know like. Yeah, like we talked about ages ago, teenagers their brains ain't completely wide. When they're going through the teenage period, the chemistry in their head's a bit off. Everything makes them think stupid and they do a lot of stupid stuff without even realising it. And it's weird when it gets to this maturity part, because it's like a flow between, a flow between both. So they do something really great and responsible and the next thing they follow it up with something stupid and you're like what is going on? Who is this person that you can do this but you can't do? Right? You're able to, you know, be so responsible and help her out and do this or do something like that. And then next thing you know they go and do something stupid that you're like why would you do that?
Speaker 2:like, yeah, yes, I can see that, like, like I said, he's showing all these signs of being responsible and I'm recognizing it for him because I know it's important to him. But then he does, he does, he does a kid thing again. And then I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, you're still 13, he's the same height as me now, right, but you know, I I get, so that throws me off a little bit too, because he's getting so tall. Yeah, but you know, I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right, you're still. You're still like you were.
Speaker 3:You weren't a teenager till like eight months or six months ago, exactly and the 13 year old actually went to the movies on 12, turning 13. She went to the movies yesterday with her friends no adults like dropped off at the, the mall, the shopping center. They went to the grocery store that's in the shopping center, brought you know lollies and stuff, shoved it in their bags, watched what is apparently the worst movie at the moment snow white um and then went and had lunch afterwards. So they're out there for I don't know four or five hours by themselves. The shops are very different and and I realized that like looking like it all getting planned and organized and going. So where did this child come from?
Speaker 2:she's growing up all of a sudden very growing up, all of a sudden, that she is doing this more adult, teenager, adult, adult-like day, I guess would be the best way to put it, it reminds me of what we said I don't know a few episodes ago, where, by the time they're what 18 or 16 or something like you spent like 80 or 90% of the time you'll ever spend with them, or something like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it just really makes it. But I went out yesterday because I had a 40th to go to and I didn't see like the pickup or anything like that or hear how the how the day went. So I was asking the wife last night when I got home how to go. She goes, oh yeah, one of the other ladies, one of the other mums dropped them off and she got a couple of photos of them and that and it's realizing girls socially are very different to boys socially. I never noticed it growing up. Obviously girls at one stage, but their social circles are very different so they tend to pair off. Girls do so they'll go.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, that's, that's like my one friend and then that's it. That's, you know, we do everything together, whereas boys can handle more of a group situation, like kind of jump in between friends, like you got a group of friends, but then you know that you can. You, it doesn't have to be the same friend that you hang out with all the time. It's go, I can rotate and I can. You know, I go with justin. Then next, next weekend, I'm gonna hang out with sam, or I'll hang out with Justin and Sam, or fuck Justin, or Dave's coming over. You know what I mean. Like it rotates, girls, it's very much. You know this is my friend. Oh crap, she's not there. This is whole weird. Now what do I? How do I handle?
Speaker 3:And so she's going out with three other friends, right, and this photo that the wife showed me. It was very clear to see the pairing up, because imagine four girls standing together for a group photo but with like the space of a person in between. It goes two, two, space for one person, two, but then the twos are actually dressed similar to each other. It's like they coordinated outfits. So it's like is it really just two friends, like a friend and a friend going out together, and then they're caught up with another friend and a friend like you could really see, right, it's like it looked fucking awkward, given the fact that I've just come back from a 40th, and in a couple of people they're like oh, I want to get a group photo.
Speaker 3:And you got friends that I've been with 25, 30 years, that I've known, and everyone's just arm and arm around each other. It's a normal smile photo. And then I've been with 25, 30 years that I've known and everyone's just arm and arm around each other. It's a normal smile photo. And then I've come home and looked at this group photo of my daughters and it's like that's not really a group photo, like what's going on.
Speaker 2:It's like those other two people just photobombed you or something yeah, it was just really.
Speaker 3:It was like you can see the awkwardness in this photo.
Speaker 2:I'm like, okay, yeah, this is, it's cute but it's like awkward guys don't like I think we just don't care quite as much. Like friend relations are just different. Like like my wife last week. You know, I'm going to friend like oh, how's his wife and kids? I'm like, I don't know, like alive. I guess he probably would have told me if they were dead. Yeah, yeah. And like, or I'll have friends where I call them good friends. I don't talk to them for nine months we pick up and I talk again like nothing happened. Yeah, that was about the same.
Speaker 3:The conversation continues just like it was yesterday Just spoke. It didn't really matter that there's been a. There's been a gap for so long. I think we were talking this year cause it's the year of the forties in one fucking year. Right, we might catch up a handful of times in a year, but not, you know, every couple of weeks. They're kind of and it's weird because you, because we've gotten used to getting that older, having that longer break in between, so it might be three months or six months between seeing each other. Yeah, when you have a catch up at a, at a party or a barbecue or a gathering, you do the whole. What's going on. Yeah, this is about to go on the, the job, the family and I go through blah, blah, blah. And of course, we've got Facebook. You can see what's happening. We're old people. That is really. My social media is Facebook to keep up to date with what everyone's doing. I never got onto Instagram, but you know we do that catch-up. Now we're catching up every two weeks.
Speaker 2:It's really running low on material to talk about when you've just finished doing the catch-up, like this is a yeah, yeah, okay, but I think it's like it's that's more of a guy thing because, like, I think women just see they just have more because they get into more details than we do. Yeah, you know, like we talk about kids because that's what this show is about, but, like you know, like I have plenty of other friends who have kids, I don't ever ask them about their kids and they don't ask me about mine because, honestly, nobody cares, you know last night, this 40th, there was actually a lot of kids.
Speaker 3:I didn't take any of the kids, they stayed home and even the wife stayed home. But there was a lot of kids at this 40th, to the point that, like I, I shuddered when I looked in the room where all the kids were hanging out in the kids' room. I'm like, oh God, like shit, it's a mess. There is party. It was full on. And I want to say it was because it wasn't. It was my friend's 40th, but also his wife's 40th. It was my friend's 40th, but also his wife's 40th. So they joined together. So she had all her friends and their kids. They were more open to bringing away more kids than what my friends were. My friends were just kind of like down the back corner of the yard near a fire and you could see that divide in different personalities. They did a cake and a speech and then we're standing around awkwardly like, is this for shit? Don't know? We meant to. Is someone one of us meant to do a speech for him like, where was this?
Speaker 2:right, yeah, yeah, those kind of situations are awkward anyway, you know, I've never enjoyed, you know, like big things, like speeches like that stuff, like that, where you have to do impromptu.
Speaker 3:It's not my thing no, just just, I'm good, leave it, but yeah, it's, it just shows that awkwardness of going from the teenagers to adults. That's very still similar. How that, how that, how they work, that the social dynamic works, even like the other day, when I want to say it was thursday last week we yeah, we're talking about starbucks is opening across the road from you know, 200 yards from my house, and it's finally open. So we had to send.
Speaker 3:And because all the kids' buses actually get dropped off right next to Starbucks, 7-eleven subway it's like okay, they're going to want to go there in the afternoon and one friend just jumped off the bus, just went straight into, was straight into there with her friends. They got I don't know like a frappe or something, chocolate milk, then went to 7-Eleven, got some Krispy Kremes and, like you know, they had a nice afternoon. The other daughter came home with a friend and they actually drove no, she actually no got off the bus. Then they walked from the bus, which is right next to the place, home in the rain, because it's been raining here a lot, and then they got dropped their bags off and then walked all the way back there to get their food and then bring it what?
Speaker 2:yeah, why, why? Why did you just go straight there like which but's just aren't you? Aren't you more soaked with rain?
Speaker 3:now, exactly I was I was so confused by all of it. But you know, that was another thing. Getting that age, it's like, okay, cool, gotta give him money to go hang out. I don't, I don't. I never remember going hanging out at a coffee shop when I was, but that's the thing now. Oh, that's, that's that's. Yeah, you know how the world has become and everything's changed. That's that's the thing now. Oh, that's, that's that's. Yeah, you know how the world has become and everything's changed. That's that's. Tv, I guess, probably, probably spread that up.
Speaker 2:That's a cool thing to do, and that yeah, I remember in my mid to late teens hanging out at like all night diners and just buying cups of coffee until, because they wouldn't kick you out, but like yeah, yeah, otherwise, like I don't know I don't know.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I'm watching. There's a car across the driveway and there's like the space where she normally parks. There's another car over this side. Car across the driveway says the car space there and she's learning. Perfect opportunity to do a reverse parallel park. Yeah, no, it didn't happen. See, it looks like they've just driven up the street and parked up the other end of the street. I was just watching that Hold on, this is going to play out and then, yeah, let's go back to the learn. I'm going to just shift off the maturity thing and just over to update on learning to drive situation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I swear my daughter just wants to kill me.
Speaker 3:Oh because it's like a thousand miles an hour with you. Like every second or third time that we're in the car we have like a near miss experience of an accident. And it's, yeah, weirdly enough, like around me there's tons of roundabouts, tons, but they're all simple, just for just four-way roundabout, like nothing complex roundabout, they're just all usually double-lane roundabouts, pretty straightforward. So she should be pretty good at getting through roundabouts nowadays, yeah, but every time we do a roundabout situation she actually just drives through as a car's coming the opposite way to like cut, path, cut, yeah, and then I'm on the stop, stop, stop, stop, stop situation of like what the fuck is going on.
Speaker 3:But then I talked to my wife. I got home we had another near-death experience. She almost went through to the car. Yeah, car almost came through the side of us and my wife goes oh, that never happens with me. Then you take her, that's, why is it? And I mean you know, I've been told that my wife's oh, that never happens with me. Then you take her. That's, why is it? And I mean you know, I've been told that my wife's more on that you're speeding, you're doing this, you're doing that, you're doing that me. I like to try to try and take a more casual approach, or just sit back and let her drive and then just stop her when she needs to, you know almost kill me and she's done like I think I'm more chilled.
Speaker 3:Is she more stressed? When I'm in the car at the moment, I don't know, maybe she just doesn't like me and wants to put a car for me I don't know right.
Speaker 2:So I have taken my kid out a couple times a few times now to go driving and I decided to let him drive. It's not a real. In my opinion. It's not a real road, but it's like a road that goes from one school to the other like, yeah, but I think it's called a lane or whatever. So it's not a regular road.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm like, are you sure? I'm like, yeah, go on there. And then I'm like turn and pull into that that park by that car or by that truck. And he's turning. I'm like you're, you're steering at the truck, like I'm the don't park at it. So then he goes, and he didn't. He's like, oh, and so he's going around there, parks, at a complete angle. I'm like what are you doing? Well, and he's like, oh, let me just put it in reverse. It starts to go. I'm like you're not looking behind you, and the whole time that's what I'm thinking. But in my brain I'm like, hey, just slow down because he's freaking out. Yeah, so I have to be now. It's gonna be worse for him.
Speaker 2:But you know, I definitely saw my life flashing before my eyes, or like I saw we go back to the parking lot where we started and I go, go pull in over there and there's another car kind of sitting weirdly in the parking lot and I realized there's another parent teaching their kid how to drive. Yeah, and I go park back there. He's driving, right for it. He's like, no, I want to park up here, but he's, he's right at them and I'm about to like lean, leap over and like press the gas, the brake with my hand. Yeah, then he finally stopped. He's like I just wanted to park here.
Speaker 3:I'm like, get, get, we're done the lesson's over, get out, you know I it's still scitizen because she's only, let's just say, two months almost, we'll say three, we'll say go extra, sorry, three months of actually having her license and being able to drive a car herself.
Speaker 2:No-transcript really she's already had, she has a license. You're still getting them, so I don't.
Speaker 3:I don't know why it happens to me. I don't really don't know why, but it really concerns me for once. She gets that license and is is out there by herself her, permit her learner's thing right, yeah, yeah yeah, okay, yeah, because she's on her learner's now. So she has to be with a, with a adult.
Speaker 2:Yeah 100 hours? Okay, 100 hours. What is? Do they have any rules, like when they get to license, in terms of what they can do or what they can't do?
Speaker 3:um, in my. So this is all different from when I got a license, but I believe there is a restriction to having passengers after a certain hour. I think they're allowed to have immediate family after such and such time, like you know, say 10 o'clock at night, and then maybe from like 10 o'clock on, they might be allowed to have one friend, but they can't have more than one friend. They can have like one friend and as much immediate family as they want. I think that's the only rule as far as I'm concerned. Oh, and blood alcohol, obviously you can't, can't drink and drive with right. So they're zero, zero.
Speaker 2:I was just I was just looking it up and I thought it was more than 100 hours for cadet for connecticut, but it says 40, which is crazy. That's not a.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm sure it was similar to when you drove. There was no hours, it was just get your learner's thing and then, after an age thing just go for your license. I honestly think I did maybe five hours of driving between my learners and getting my license.
Speaker 2:It was yeah, and I know there's restrictions. Once you get it, like you were saying, for the first year, for the first six months you can't have anyone except like a parent or you know another adult in the car. Yeah, and then you could have a sibling in the car, but you can't have anyone else besides a family member for like the first year. Yeah, which is good because everyone I got mine within the first 30 days I was, I got my first speeding ticket with four friends in the car and now I get why those kind of rules exist, because I was an idiot.
Speaker 3:I was just double-checking because there's another one. So, yeah, if you're driving because we had two versions of provisions, so you got a P1 and a P2. And a P1, driving between 11 pm and 5 5 am, you can only carry one passenger under 21 who is not immediate. Okay, that's, that's. That's the restriction there. The other one I find very interesting is they have mobile phone restrictions, yeah, so they can't use. They can't use a mobile phone at all, just like I don't know what you guys like, but I know you can't use a mobile phone while you're driving here, like in your hand. You can can have Apple CarPlay or Bluetooth type of thing. You know you're able to use that, but you can't physically touch the phone. So they're not even allowed to operate a phone under Bluetooth, so they can't even take phone calls while driving is a restriction, even with.
Speaker 2:Bluetooth.
Speaker 3:Yeah, even with bluetooth. Yeah, if even with bluetooth, reading that, then they must not use phones, including hands-free kits, bluetooth accessories, wireless headsets, a phone's loudspeaker function. So it's not until they get to their second provision that they're allowed to accept calls, use navigation apps, skip a song, etc. I do not know trying to think at all. Oh, there's a, there's a high power difference too. Kids can't the certain cars that power to weight ratio they're not allowed to drive as well. Oh, really, yeah, it used to be just turbos, but then they realized there was like lots of little, like three-cylinder turbo cars that made no power, that they restricted and they're like hold on, we gotta, we gotta rethink this rule. It's gonna be power to weight now instead.
Speaker 2:Oh, I should see if that exists, because, like I'm teaching him on my car, which is a dodge charger, you know, eight cylinder heavy, yeah yeah, definitely wouldn't.
Speaker 3:Definitely wouldn't be a car that like a p player could drive. Yeah, right, yeah, hello. Kids on p1 queensland I'm just double checking. So they. So once she gets it, she's on a p1, that's the one for out of mobile for one year and then, and then, as long as she's this stage requires the completion kind of work out what this is. After a year she can then go to her next provision. So it's like a year of restrict, harder restrictions, and then after a year, yeah, okay, cool, she can use her next one. And then for us, all kids have to have, like you know, you got your l plates on your learners. They actually have p plates as well, so it goes to like a. I think it's a red one to show that you're level one, and then you you get a green one when you're level two. So you still got to show your plates that you're still a provisional, provisional driver for the first few years.
Speaker 2:It helps other drivers stay the hell away from you when they see you on the road yeah, and I mean I didn't have to do any of that either.
Speaker 3:That was not something we we didn't have to do we had learner plates but never had to do the whole provisional plate on the car. That wasn't. That was something that the other states used to do, and it's only recent years that they've made us do it. Yeah, up here, yeah because I got.
Speaker 2:I got the day I turned 16, I went and filed, I went and made the appointment for my test, which was gonna be about two and a half months later, and and then I even messed up with the test and the guy's like, yeah, you know you pass, so it was, it was fine. But yeah, they have no car restrictions here, although one one thing that's interesting is I didn't know this they can't. So they have nighttime restrictions, like you were saying 11pm to 5am. They can't be on the road and that isn't lifted until they're 18, no matter what.
Speaker 3:Same here. They can't get their license until 17 and then for one year. They can't do that until they're 18.
Speaker 2:You can get it at 16 here, but but yeah, oh, my god, I'm looking at some states that can. In the in the us there are states that say the minimum age is as low as 14. There's no way. There used to be a lot of states in the us are 14, 15, wow I don't know.
Speaker 3:I never really looked into it, but there used to be a thing when I was younger where you could get your license earlier, but you had to live in a rural situation like more remote city kids couldn't do it. It had to be a rural situation that you could apply to get your license early, because obviously you were driving down the other end of your property or down a driveway, like there's no real public transport or ways to get to school and bits and pieces. So they allowed kids to get their license I want to say six months, maybe a year earlier than what was normal for those. You had to apply for it, like it wasn't something that you could just say yes, you had to apply, and then they would come back and say yes or no, whether you're cool.
Speaker 2:Right, say yes, you had to apply, and then they would come back and say yes or no, whether you're cool and that right. But there's a, there's a state that allows you to get your your full license at 14 and a half years old and they lift the nighttime restrictions by the time you're 16.
Speaker 3:That's crazy, man yeah, yeah, I'd be. I'd be more thinking that those kids stole the car like if I was driving around you you know what I mean. I'm driving around. I'm seeing like a young kid in a car. I'm thinking that kid stole the car. Really I'd be calling the police. Yeah, that's crazy. I was thinking might like wrap this one up here and I'll give updates if I'm alive or dead. I guess in the future you might get to see.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Hear him on the next episode. You know we got a problem.
Speaker 3:We got a problem. I'm six foot under.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to dad mode. Our passion is navigating this wild journey of parenthood and modern life, from balancing family time to managing your career and still squeezing in some gaming and content creation. And no matter what the women say, they will never be able to pry the controller out of our cold dead hands. Anyway, we hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, find us on Twitter, tiktok and YouTube at DadModePodcast and we can be found on every podcast site at DadModePodcast. Y'all be cool. See you next time.
