Have you ever found yourself playing the peacemaker in a family feud you had no idea existed? That's where a few of my fans, ended up at their past family reunion, and trust me, it was a rollercoaster. This episode of "Eclipse" shines a light on the shadows cast by family drama and how it shapes us, with a special focus on the young women caught in the crossfire. I'm sharing my firsthand experience of the commotion that unfolds when past and present collide, and I'm inviting you to chuckle and cringe along with the stories from our listeners' own kin.
Family squabbles can leave scars, especially on teenagers navigating their own lives and problems . This episode dives deeper into the effects of single moms' dating on their daughters and the critical need for a nurturing space to help them shine through the chaos. As we unpack these tales and trials, we open a dialogue aimed at offering solace and strategies for those young girls who may feel their light is being snuffed out by life's trials.
And then we pivot, turning our attention to the teenagers themselves, and the crucial decisions that loom large on their horizons. We talk about the pressures of social media, and the real-world consequences of something as seemingly innocuous as a speeding ticket. But it's not all cautionary tales; we also offer up some financial wisdom, aiming to help our younger listeners pave a path to a bright and secure future. As we wrap up, I send out a prayer for the teens tuning in, hoping that "Eclipse" serves as a beacon through their formative years. Join us, and let's share in the journey of growing up, together.
* some of the content used in this show I do not own the rights
Have you ever found yourself playing the peacemaker in a family feud you had no idea existed? That's where a few of my fans, ended up at their past family reunion, and trust me, it was a rollercoaster. This episode of "Eclipse" shines a light on the shadows cast by family drama and how it shapes us, with a special focus on the young women caught in the crossfire. I'm sharing my firsthand experience of the commotion that unfolds when past and present collide, and I'm inviting you to chuckle and cringe along with the stories from our listeners' own kin.
Family squabbles can leave scars, especially on teenagers navigating their own lives and problems . This episode dives deeper into the effects of single moms' dating on their daughters and the critical need for a nurturing space to help them shine through the chaos. As we unpack these tales and trials, we open a dialogue aimed at offering solace and strategies for those young girls who may feel their light is being snuffed out by life's trials.
And then we pivot, turning our attention to the teenagers themselves, and the crucial decisions that loom large on their horizons. We talk about the pressures of social media, and the real-world consequences of something as seemingly innocuous as a speeding ticket. But it's not all cautionary tales; we also offer up some financial wisdom, aiming to help our younger listeners pave a path to a bright and secure future. As we wrap up, I send out a prayer for the teens tuning in, hoping that "Eclipse" serves as a beacon through their formative years. Join us, and let's share in the journey of growing up, together.
* some of the content used in this show I do not own the rights
Speaker 1:
Welcome to Thinking Out Loud with your favorite cousin, Cousin Toya, where the thoughts in your head become real conversations.
Speaker 2:
Good morning Frisco. It's your favorite cousin, Toy Toya, and welcome to another episode of Thinking Out Loud. Let's get into it.
Speaker 1:
Have some kind of vision for your life, Even if you don't know the plan. You have to have a direction in which you choose to go. I never was the kind of woman who liked to get in a car and just go for a ride. I had a boyfriend who would say let's just go for a ride. I want to know where are we going? Do we have a destination? Is there a plan? Are we just riding? What I've learned is that's a great metaphor for life you want to be in the driver's seat of your own life, because if you're not, life will drive you.
Speaker 2:
So that is such a great speech that Oprah did for college graduates and it truly speaks volumes to our topic today. If you are not in control of your life, if you do not get in the driver's seat of your life at a young age and get on the path to your destination, it is going to be so easy for this world, for people, people, for just everything in life, to manipulate and to dim your light. Don't let anyone dim your light. So we named this show eclipse, because we're going to talk about things in life that come about that can really dim a woman's or a young girl's light. But that is only for a moment, and so we want to take the whole solar eclipse experience and kind of use it for our daily topic. So let's get into it, y'all. So our topic for um, our question of the day, is about family, family gossip, family renewals, right? So while you guys were away, I went to um, my hometown, I would say midway Texas and a little small town, and we went out there.
Speaker 2:
My dad's side of the family had their family reunion on Easter weekend. Yes, my Easter weekend is chaotic. So you guys, I am the best at organizing, getting everybody together, all that type of stuff. I'm great at that. When it comes to knowing who's going through this, what somebody's business is this, that and the other? What's the family drama? I have no clue. That's why I am the perfect person to work with everybody, because I have no clue as to what is going on. So then, once these family events are over and you come back home and you know, you and your cousin, y'all don't talk. You and your mom don't talk, you and your sister, your daddy, your other cousin, and you just like wait, all this was going on at the reunion. So it is always very fun and very interesting to hear all the chaos that's going on in different families. So for this week, I thought it would be funny and fun if I just put it out there and said what is the most bizarre thing that has happened at your family reunion? And I got some good juicy stuff, y'all.
Speaker 2:
So this fan writes and says hey, cousin Toya, let me tell you about what went down in my family reunion last year. So my uncle lives out of town, okay, and he has been married to this lady for about two or three years. Before this marriage I had a long term. They were not married but they had been together for years. Before this marriage I had a long-term aunt. They were not married but they had been together for years and we kind of grew up and called her auntie Okay. Okay. Yeah, I got a lot of that in my family and she says that apparently the new wife didn't know about the old lifelong partner that the other auntie used to be, and so apparently my uncle has still been talking to both women at the same time. Oh, wow, not any merrier. But anyway, to make a long story short, the new auntie called me and was like hey, you know, have you seen your uncle and me? Being naive, I was just thinking like, yeah, he at the reunion. So I guess apparently my uncle had told her that he wasn't coming to the reunion because him and my old auntie was at the reunion together.
Speaker 2:
So about an hour goes by and I see the new auntie pulling up at the reunion. When I say my heart stopped. I mean I was like, oh my God, oh my God, I got my auntie, I got my uncle in trouble. Yeah, girl, you probably blew his pimp in, right? So this new lady walks in and I mean she is going ham on my uncle about what? Because he was sitting with my older auntie and so whenever my uncle was trying to explain himself, I guess the other lady, the new auntie, got a little carried away and she started calling my old auntie out of her name and stuff.
Speaker 2:
And honey, when I say these two women locked up and went to fight, they was throwing blows and at 16 years old I didn't know what to do. I was like I don't want to be a part of this drama. That was definitely a good one. I'll piggyback right on that man. I could tell you some stories where, oh, man, and I'd have been like, oh, and I'd have had some uncles. Be like, don't worry about it, baby, I got this covered. Apparently you don't have this covered, sir, what are you doing? And so, uh, most definitely, uh, I have dealt with uncles and they, yeah, one shows up with a woman and you're like, who is this woman? And then the other auntie call like, is your uncle there? And you're like, uh, I don't know. So I definitely feel that it's always interesting when families got a lot of. I'm not saying it's a good thing for people to be doing wrong, but it is definitely entertaining. We have got to love our families. Right, it's all love in the Boosie family.
Speaker 1:
Love your family, take care of your family.
Speaker 2:
Boosie blue had them neck bones.
Speaker 2:
So we definitely want to listen to Boosie on this one and love our family, no matter how crazy they are. So, as we dive into this topic of solar eclipse in young girls lives okay, things that come about to darken their life okay, and these things sometimes we want to try to control how much or how many times young girls are experiencing solar eclipse, right? You don't want a girl to be having a solar eclipse every other day, every other six months. There is something coming and just totally covering her light to shine, right. So whenever I am talking to you'd be surprised. So you guys, I'm not a psychiatrist. I do not have a degree in that. My degree is in business, okay, but I did study psychology for a little while and looks like I'm a podcaster. So that is kind of therapy, right. So you'd be surprised as to interacting with different teenagers over the years, how many deep conversations I've had with parents, and so when people come at me and it mostly is about girls, I very seldom do I get stories about guys, mainly because I, for the most part, I teach girls at church. So you have people come to me and it's just like oh my God, I got a 16 year old, she's crazy, she won't do this, she won't do that. She, she did, she did, she did, and it's just like okay, stop everybody. Okay, the first thing that I do whenever I am talking to mom, dad, daughter, whoever, I ask a simple question Tell me about home. Okay, if you can get people to start telling you about home, you can start to see problems that, when you're the thing of it is, is that people think that, oh, when people start telling me about my life, they're judging me. But that's not true, you guys. My life, they're judging me, but that's not true, you guys. Sometimes in our lives, when we're on the inside of stuff, we can't really see clearly. When somebody else is standing back looking at this whole situation, people can see different things and pinpoint areas that technically you can't see, okay, so don't think that people are trying to judge you when they're talking to you. They're just trying to help, okay. So the first thing I say is tell me about home. Okay, tell me about home. And so most of the, if I'm talking to a single mother, do y'all want to know what the first thing is? I notice Her dating life. Single mothers are having chaotic dating lives and their children are watching them. It is already difficult, y'all.
Speaker 2:
I came up in a household, and every time I tell these stories I always reiterate um, there was nobody in my household that was abused. My dad was a great, awesome man, but my mom and dad had problems in their marriage. I was old enough, my sister was too young and my brother was in and out. He was from house to house, from his mother house to our house, because you know his, his mom, is from a previous relationship, and then it's my mom and my me and my sister. So I was the kid that was getting it all. I understood fully what was going on all the time, so that became a chaos for me. So when I was a teenager, I was already dealing with things. I had already inquired my mom's temper. I already had that off the rip, okay. Then I was 16, 15, 17.
Speaker 2:
Uh, I was not blessed to get to date the guy that everybody agreed and and glorified. I dated the guy that people tended to say oh no, you know he's, he's going to be this and he's going to be that. And so I always was. I couldn't see my boyfriend. I couldn't hang out. They were, it was rules, and then it was rules on top of rules to protect me from dating him. So I just had 35 million different rules going on All of this, million different rules going on All of this and I'm inside of a somewhat chaotic relationship atmosphere at home.
Speaker 2:
So I tell single mothers right off the rip tell me about your home life. After you talk to mom for a little while, you start to see where the problem is. It ain't in the child. Y'all have got to control these relationships that y'all are in because it's affecting your kids. Your daughter sees you and that man having a knock down, drag out your daughter hears you crying, crying. So first of all, let's fix the structure at home before we start disassembling these teenagers. Okay. The second thing that I um that I ask about okay, how the rules at home? Okay, because the first part of this I'm just talking to parents how are the rules at home?
Speaker 2:
I either got a mom and most of these are married women they got some bizarre rules. If you give a girl that harsh of rules, she is going to she's going to do some crazy stuff. Okay, she's gonna break. She's gonna do something to break through. You cannot.
Speaker 2:
Um, looking back on it, I thought my mom was extreme. But come to find out my mother wasn't extreme. I seen another family member who, okay, that's extreme, okay, and so it caused different types of problems in people lives because they were so sheltered. Now that I'm 35, I look back on my mom and I say my mom did pretty well. You know, at the time I thought she was like the most evil mom ever. I was just like why did I get the mean mama? But now I look at it and I thank God for the different types of things that my mom protected me from.
Speaker 2:
There were so many slumber parties. I would come home, mama, everybody, people that ain't even from here are going to be at this, and my mama would say absolutely not, you're not going to be there. So but her rules were not so harsh. They seemed that harsh but they wasn't that harsh. So to make a long story short, you have got remember the story of three bears. One of the porridge was just extremely too hot and then the other one was extremely too cold.
Speaker 2:
You have got to take time to learn your children and you have got to give them rules that they can digest. It's not too hot and it's not too cold. I'm not telling you to relax your morals for your kids, but you are going to have to give them rules that are easier to take down, okay, and you're going to have to give them rules that are easier to take down. Okay, and you're going to have to stick to these rules and regulations. The next thing is respect.
Speaker 2:
Okay, teenagers can see things, y'all. They may not have the wisdom that we have, but they are real people now and they can really see what you're doing and your character. Sometimes you'll have dad come in, dad don't work, but dad can't figure out why his son is is is bucking him. Sir, you get what I'm saying. These kids can see things kind of through a young adult eyes. They don't see things as an eight-year-old anymore. Um, even if you're a single, your daughter sees all these different women. They're seeing these things and it's affecting them and they're already in chaos in their heads. So when your life is in chaos and you're trying to raise a teenager that's already in chaos, it's going to be extremely hard for you.
Speaker 2:
Okay, back to the rules. You guys, you cannot protect your teenager from everything. Okay, you can't take a kid and lock it in the house. The kid don't have no friends. You are that kid's only lifeline. You're trying to. I'm a protector from the world.
Speaker 2:
Y'all, let me tell y'all something and y'all not going to like when I say this as parents, but I'm going to say this anyways that little girl, she need to know what it feel like to be in a dark movie theater sitting next to some little boy and how to handle herself. You do not need to shelter this child from these experiences. Stop being lazy. You have to get up and when she make a mistake and stay out past curfew, you gotta be the mama that's gonna checkmate her when she walked through the door. You can't. Um, oh, my god.
Speaker 2:
You have girls nowadays especially, I talked to girls that are athletes. They're going through this whole. I don't know if I want to date a girl, boy, a cheeto or a pickle. You know how these kids is now. They got some wild stuff going on. Well, you have mom. Oh, you're not playing basketball, you're not going nowhere. Baby, when she get 18, she gonna hit that dough and she gonna it's gonna be right there in front of her again. The only thing, you guys, is that she doesn't have practice in dealing with these things.
Speaker 2:
A lot of things that I went through. I didn't get myself in so much trouble because my mom gave me just enough to get in trouble, but just enough not to make a huge mistake. And that's where parents have to start to learn their kids. You cannot just shield these teenagers from everything. It's just like playing basketball, that's like life. You have to practice. You have got to give these teenagers some practice with life so that they can start to say oh well, this is what this is, this is this feeling and I need to do this, or I made this mistake last year and I'm not gonna make it this year. Do you understand what I'm saying as parents? So that is my spiel to parents that are dealing with teenagers. And now we can get into this solar eclipse on just talking to our teenage girls and what they're going through and the different things that I have heard that they need help with. Ok, I have to finish this sketch and put exit off to Paris. And then how about you and I go out to lunch and spend?
Speaker 1:
the rest of the day getting lost in Harrods. I can't. I'm sorry. I have to go out of town today. Oh, you have to go out of town.
Speaker 2:
And where, may I ask, are you going, annie?
Speaker 1:
Annie. That's where I have to go. I have to go see Annie, I see. And where might Annie be? In Napa with her father? Nick Parker, you're not Annie, that would be correct.
Speaker 2:
You're Holly. That is one of my favorite parts from the Parenthood movie, the Parent Trap movie. I said Parenthood, but the reason why I use that part of that movie is because, for teenagers, your parents really see you as the child that you have been to them. For what? 11, 12 years they spend with you and you're this person. Then, from 13 to 18, you are doing this total transformation and it's almost like sometimes you're in the house with the parent who raised you, but it's as if you had a twin that they knew and that this person that is now living with them. They don't even know you anymore and that's what you guys are feeling Like they don't know me as I am now, like I'm just walking around the house, going through life and they're dealing with me as if I'm still 11, 12 years old and you're not. So you're getting frustrated with your parents.
Speaker 2:
The first thing I want to say to teenagers is stay cool with your parents. The first thing I want to say to teenagers is stay cool, don't blow a gasket, because, just like you are learning you guys, your parents are learning how to deal with you. They're trying to understand you, but parents haven't been a teenager in a long time. Parents mostly are only dealing with you as a teenager. They're not like me, where I'm dealing with multiple teenagers throughout years, all the time talking to parents. They're out of practice of it and then on top of that, your parents have their own lives. But the thing that we want to talk about here is this whole solar eclipse in your life. And when I say that there are things that can happen in your teenage years that can really dim your light, will these things dim your light for the rest of your life? You can get past them. No different from teen pregnancy. That is a dim and a light for a teen, but at the same time, if this teen is productive and goes on and becomes something great and takes care of their children and whatever the case may be, that is over. So everything darkness just passes by the light. You are the light. But different things that are what we consider darkness, like getting on drugs, like I said, teen pregnancy, getting records. You have teenagers that already have records on them and so therefore, as you get older, these things will. You will always have this thing that passes by you and dims your light when you go and apply for a job and you already got a record. Do you understand what I'm saying? Yes, you might have changed and grew from this, but at the same time, that is dimming your light.
Speaker 2:
So we want to try to make as less big mistakes as we possibly can, something that I started out doing. That was a big mistake the first time my dad bought me a black Mustang right, and they gave me this long speech Do not get a ticket or you're going to get punished. You guys, I got a ticket my second day driving my car and ever since that first ticket, I wrestled with getting tickets because I would not control my speeding. When I got an adult, all those tickets that had piled up over the years, it became a problem for me. The stuff that I was doing when I was younger is going to cause a problem for you when you get older. So that's why, as a teenager and I know y'all don't like when I tell y'all this, teenagers, you don't got no sense, baby I tell my teenage girls this and they just they absolutely despise me for it. But y' are smart and you can find, you can understand things, but there are certain things that your mind is just not ready to handle yet.
Speaker 2:
Okay, you guys live in an environment of social media. Social media is, oh my God, it's so much Right now. What is the most popular video, even more popular than the eclipse right now, today? The Megan Thee Stallion twerk video. The internet has lost it. Everybody. Those are the types of things that you guys, that stuff is being poured into you 24-7, stuff like that. So it gets extremely hard for y'all to fight against things, and that's why you ought to talk to your parents and a few older people to help you to get through these different things that you were seeing, because if you continue to let these things just pour into you the twerking, the social media, the now they got where you go to parties and you drive the boat and all that type of stuff. So if y'all just keep letting all these things like this just be poured into you 24, seven, eventually one is going to get through.
Speaker 2:
Okay, when I say that, I mean let's say, um, uh, you start drinking as a teenager. Okay, you may not get caught with. Oh, you you stole from your friends. Oh, you didn't. You didn't get caught driving your car fast. Oh, you didn't get caught, uh, sneaking out the house with your boyfriend. But one of them bad habits is going to stick with you. Let's say that you now go to parties and you drink. You might get away from those other five bad things that you're doing, but one of those bad things is going to stick with you Alcohol, going to these parties, drinking. You guys, that stuff will something's going to break through and it's going to stick with you and it's going to hinder you as you get older.
Speaker 2:
Okay, so just take a step back as a teenager and really look at situations and you guys are smart, think about it. Is this going to dim my light? Is this going to have a long-term effect on me or short-term? Those are the questions, as a teenager, that I want you guys to put in your head and start to think about, because you can make the y'all are smart. I've been around you. I know I tease and say y'all ain't got no sense, but I really want y'all to really just sit down and start to think about things that can hinder you in the future and that can dim your light as of now. Okay, and don't participate in those things. Try not to take in so much of that.
Speaker 2:
I'm not saying don't never get on social media. I was on social media. That's how I know what's on there, but filter some of that stuff and how fast it's getting to you. Okay, and that is my little spiel to parents and teenagers. I hope that helped in some type of way and we will come back next week with a little more. We're just going to dedicate this month to teenagers and so that's my little spiel on that and I really hope you guys enjoyed it. Hey T, what you doing? Oh girl, nothing, just minding my business.
Speaker 2:
So we added in a little part in our show it's just called Minding my Business and basically it's me getting a chance to just share some business, finance, accounting, just something that I go to school for I want to be a professor for all that types of stuff, so it gives me practice. Obviously, this show is about teenagers, so we're not going to go into the stock market or a big savings account. So, for teenagers, the first thing that I would say because you guys are headed off to college or either you're headed to an apartment and a job. So the first thing that I would say financially, just like I talked to the adults on the last podcast about habits, the habits that you have as a teenager they're going to follow you into adulthood. If, every time you get $10, you're headed to McDonald's or after some food, that's what you're going to be doing as an adult. If, every time you get $20, you're headed to get some shoes or just buy, buy, buy, you're going to. Those are habits that you are forming and you just need to watch yourself. I know you're teenagers. I want y'all to have fun, but be mindful, because you are headed into being an adult. Okay, take 10 or $20 and set it aside for to give to somebody or to help out with something, because that's who you want to be in life. The more you give and the more responsible you are, the more you're going to have.
Speaker 2:
The second thing is your room is your first apartment. If you can't take care of your room, you cannot take care of a dorm room. If you run out of toilet paper at a 17-year-old girl and you don't have the knowledge to go get you some toilet paper, do you get what I'm saying? Toothpaste, start out small. When y'all get y'all little jobs and stuff, oh, I would go and get you some little toilet, whatever kind of mouthwash you want, in your bathroom, your little bathroom, in your room. That's your first little apartment. Start there. If you can take care of that, you can take care of a dorm room and you can take care of an apartment. Um, start buying you little cleaning supplies every month and and use them and tell. Tell your, this is for my room, don't. But just little things like that will start to get you guys ready for college and ready for life.
Speaker 2:
I'm not big on telling teenagers to go and invest in the stock market, but because it's little habits, guys learn how to. Guys, I'm going to be honest Do y'all know what y'all going to be doing for the rest of y'all life? Providing for somebody, either your girl or your kids. So go ahead and start practicing. Take $20. I'm not telling you to go take care of somebody's daughter right now, but set aside $20 and say I'm not going to touch that, because when I take my little girlfriend out to eat I'm going to have $20. You know to help with something or buy something. To help with something or buy something If you don't have a girlfriend that you want to spend money on. Take $20 of your little lawn cutting money and put gas in your mom's car. Start to practice habits with money that you want to be as an adult. Y'all can still go buy your J's, but just start to practice these things, and that would be my financial guidance to a teenager is learning how to first take care of a small household and then you can move into other things in life.
Speaker 2:
Okay, I hope you guys enjoy it. Thank you so much for tuning in. You guys have been an extraordinary audience All of my fans who write in and all of that. You guys, we are setting up an email so that you can email me. We're going to see how that goes, but give me a few moments. You guys please be patient with me.
Speaker 2:
I know you guys are waiting on me to start doing interviews. It takes time to get people to interview. Some people feel comfortable talking about this subject, some people don't, and so it just takes a while. I've only been on air I haven't even been on air six months. That's what I tell people. So just bear with me. I'm working on two or three interviews that I think are going to be fantastic and we are going to implement them to the show. So just hang with your girls, stay down. Stay down for the come up.
Speaker 2:
Thank you so much for tuning in to another show of Thinking Out Loud with your favorite cousin, toya, and this show was called Eclipse. It was dedicated to teenagers and this month we are just going to keep. It was dedicated to teenagers and this month we're just going to keep dedicating our shows to teenagers and helping to guide these young adults. I love to call them babies, but they don't like when I say that. So we're going to end the show.
Speaker 2:
Let's just say a quick little prayer for all teenagers and then I will let you guys go. Okay, dear God, we come to you once more in the most homeless way that we know how. We want to ask you to look over our teenagers, protect them, guide them, Keep them from anything that will darken or dim their light. Give them the different adults and teachers and coaches placed in their lives that can help them grow and become extraordinary adults. And just keep your hand on them, protect and guide them. Your hand on them, protect and guide them, and we pray that the different shows and podcasts and things that we put out there, that it can really reach teenagers and young girls and young men and make them better people. Amen, all right, y'all, Y'all stay safe. I'll see y'all in two weeks. Stay real, never fake. Bye.