For Steppers Only: Raw, Uncut, and Unedited
Welcome to the For Steppers Only podcast—the spot where real ones from all walks of life link up to chop it up about everything under the sun. We’re talking relationships, careers, education, sports, the supernatural, sexuality, personal growth, entrepreneurship, family vibes—you name it. With a mix of laughs, raw conversations, and deep dives, this podcast is all about learning, leveling up, and hearing voices you might not come across every day. Pull up and vibe with us as we break it all down and celebrate the journey of life from every angle. Let’s step into something real together.
For Steppers Only: Raw, Uncut, and Unedited
Sore throat for 2 Months?
The rollercoaster of parenthood hits different when you're watching your children approach major life transitions. In this raw, unfiltered episode, I dive deep into the emotional whirlwind of having my son graduate high school while my daughter prepares to enter the jungle of middle school.
What happens when our children reach these pivotal moments, and we suddenly realize just how unprepared they might be for what's coming next? I share the text from my son that stopped me in my tracks: "Dad, I don't know what I'm going to do." After 12 years of structured education, many young adults feel completely lost about their next move—a feeling I remember all too well from my own graduation.
Parenthood comes with horror stories that keep us up at night. From shocking teenage behaviors to predatory adults targeting our children, the world can feel like a horror movie that our kids are walking into unprepared. But through these fears, we must remember our crucial role: teaching our children that failure isn't fatal—it's formative.
The sun doesn't shine every day for a reason. Rain is necessary for growth. Similarly, our children need both successes and failures to develop resilience and character. As parents, we can't prevent every hardship, but we can teach them how to stand back up, dust themselves off, and move forward with the wisdom gained from each fall.
Life is a chessboard requiring strategy, foresight, and adaptability. Some of us start as pawns but can evolve into more powerful pieces through experience and learning. Are you teaching your children to play checkers, reacting to one move at a time, or chess—thinking several moves ahead?
Tune in for an honest conversation about navigating parenthood's most challenging transitions and preparing our children for a world that won't always be sunshine and rainbows. Because sometimes the most important parenting happens when we let our children face the rain.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, we recording. Okay, let me get ready, let me get ready, let me get ready. Hey, I just want to tell you to sit down and watch a step-by-step and welcome to Faux Steps. Only I'm Jack. Oh, I got to get motivated this morning. Shit, it's dreary, it's raining, shit.
Speaker 1:I had to ask my own self and talk to my own self Do I really feel like recording? Do y'all really feel like listening? Shit, I don't know and really don't care, because I mean, steppers do what the steppers do. We step when all the odds are against us. So I got this dilemma. So I was told the other day, sent a text message From my daughter's mom and she told me hey, tink's graduation is next week. I'm like what? Oh, I'm sorry, not next week, but you know, in may. And I'm like, what's she graduating from? Because I know I got my oldest son. He's graduating from high school.
Speaker 1:If y'all only knew the trials and tribulations that we went through to get to that point, it's, it's a long story, and you got to know me, to know me, to understand the trials and tribulations that we went through to get to that point. It's, it's a long story, and you got to know me, to know me, to understand the trials and tribulations that we went through, um, from him not living in my house to him now living with me and me being a single father. Um, but she's telling me that my baby going to the sixth grade she going to what? And? And the fucked up part that went through my mind is all the bullshit I was exposed to when I went to middle school. You know what I'm saying. So, and my partners and everybody, you know they got girl, little girls, that are either in that age bracket or they got little boys. Man, you know we texting back and forth and I'm thinking. I keep thinking I'm gonna have to goddamn, fuck somebody son up. I mean I got boys, but I mean boys are different. I'm gonna have to. I'm gonna have to fuck somebody up for trying my daughter in that type of way or in that type of light, because I hear some horror stories all the time.
Speaker 1:Man, I told my mama hearing horror stories, like one of my partners called me, freaking out because his stepdaughter got down, got caught in the bathroom with two boys while she was on her knees. Who, what the fuck are you doing in high school on your knees in the bathroom with two boys standing on each side of you, what you about to do, I mean I. I mean I have an idea what you finna do, but I mean I ain't trying. I ain't trying to go there thinking about some jit, some some child, but it's it's. It's, it's scary, and I like horror movies. I cannot compare my life to a horror movie. That is scary to even think my daughter is about to be exposed to bullshit like that and under peer pressure and shit.
Speaker 1:Then I hear other horror stories, like the other day, me and my partner chilling. He called me on the phone Bro, what's up? Man, bro, you won't believe what the fuck I just heard. I said what you just hear, man god, now let's keep it straight, keep it pimping, bro. So you know, when my little goddamn whoop, whoops, you know she took her daughter to the goddamn, you know, to the little clinic and shit, I'm like, okay, thank you, she had a little sore throat or some shit. She was sick. She's been sick for about two months, you know, shit like that. I said okay, take shit, take shit, bruh.
Speaker 1:And then this story took a wild fucking turn. So tell me why they get the results back. The doctor looked at the little girl. So the first thing she said to do the doctor said was oh shit, oh man, this don't look like uh strep throat. She said what you mean? This shit got bumps and blisters on it. She said what hell? Yeah, you got bumps and blisters. She's like oh my god, my baby got something serious. Oh my god, what, what is it severe? Is it what? What? What? You know, she thinking like normal parents do like shit. Okay, she'll be all right. She got a little goddamn virus. She gotta be on iv fluids, she gotta go to the specialist, some shit like that. Nah, motherfucker, nah motherfucker.
Speaker 1:So tell me why they talking about the damn sore throat been going on for two months, two or three months. They talking about the little girl got chlamydia in the esophagus. The chlamydia in the esophagus, the chlamydia, the clap that oof, oof and it's like how do you digest that as a parent? How do you make that twerk in your brain as a fucking parent, brain as a fucking parent? Then you hear other hard stories where, like these goddamn chest of chest of child molesters out here and they got them swooping down on these young girls and the little girl might be, we'll say 13, the nigga about 30, bro.
Speaker 1:I had to tell somebody the other day, bro, that happened to my daughter, or some shit like that. You can just go ahead and put me in the goddamn thing, because that's all shit I'm. I'm being there for attempted murder because I know, already know what you're trying to get out. My daughter and you, nasty, ain't no telling what you fuck you trying to put in her head, what you're trying to swing, swing to her to do this, that and the third. But it's, and we know when you dare trying to manipulate and trying to take advantage of the situation.
Speaker 1:Because, like I tell people all the time, just by a brief conversation you can tell the age and mental capacity certain people are on and people don't get that. You can, you man, I don't give a fuck if you got them 16 or 30. You can have a conversation with a motherfucker that's got down 45 to 60. But you will see what their mental status is, you will see what their brain functions, that you will see if they dumb, stupid, retarded or they lick windows on weekends. That's all I'm saying. It doesn't matter on a sex agenda, but you can see what they've been exposed to, what their growth is and certain people they've been around because certain mind frames are controlled when you're in certain atmospheres.
Speaker 1:That's like I tell people all the time you can tell which environments you're comfortable in because of the way people interact. Um, my father, thank you, thank god, his soul, god rest his soul. Um, he told me that when you're in certain environments that you have to blend, that you have to do these things to whatever, whatever. Whatever, so it is is is trying, because sometimes people will look at me and say, oh, you country is here. People will look at me and say, oh, you country is hell. But then I tell them, well, how? So? How am I country? I'm just wondering, because I can switch my vocal patterns to where I am actually very intelligent, to where I can interact with you in this light, because it depends on who I'm talking to and what comfort zone I'm in to switch it up, because a lot of people think that, just because you talk a certain way, that you're uneducated or you're illiterate or you don't have high school education that you are requiring. Do, because a lot of people based off a poem, product of my environment. Because if y'all can't say, I can switch up depending on which environment I'm in, um, which a lot of people fail to realize.
Speaker 1:But back to this whole graduation thing, and it's it's like, oh my god, I'm about to have one that's going to sixth grade and I'm about to have one that's transitioning out of high school, which is he's graduating, which I'm so proud of him. If y'all, if y'all don't know how proud I am as a father to see this to happen, it's amazing, because this ain't been no easy road. I go ahead and tell you me and him bump heads a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. But it's like I texted him yesterday. I said, damn, dude, I just got an email saying that you're graduating and I already knew that you were, but this is Confirmation. He said, yeah, dad, but I don't know what I'm going to do. I said what you mean? I said, well, man, you need to talk, sit down and talk and figure this out. Because he said, I don't know what my next steps are, because school has taken so much of my life and now I'm not about to have that aspect. What do I do? I said we're going to have to sit down and talk about it because, honestly, I didn't know what I was going to do when I left high school.
Speaker 1:Most people have this shit figured out. Man, I ain't know what the fuck was going on. I think my mother was just happy just to see me graduate, because it's like crisis averted, he ain't drop out. He graduated, he got what the fuck he had to get and now we're on to a better life. But it's like now. I don't want to see my kids lost out here because, like I tell people all the time um, people tell you that when you're 18, that you're grown, you're an adult man.
Speaker 1:I felt like a fucking infant in this fucking world. I didn't know shit. I didn't know what the fuck was going on. I had got my first job and I'm just working, my ass off, just working, and I didn't have anybody to tell me this, ain't it? This is what you want to do for the rest of your life? I didn't have those people in my life to understand. Your first job is usually a bullshit job to get you introduced to the workforce, to get you to understand where you have to be to be a productive member in a society. But this is just a starting block. Instead of you build on this and you still try to find yourself in these aspects on this, and you still try to find yourself in these aspects. And when you look back at school, a lot of things that these kids are offered now, um, weren't offered. Where I went to school, like you told my motherfuckers getting offered accounting, engineering, uh, marketing, uh, man, I got offered how to fucking bake a fucking cake and I still don't know how to bake a fucking cake. Man, I tried to bake cookies the other day. Them bitches came out looking like brownies.
Speaker 1:But just to get back on the subject, it's like they're getting placed through these tools and these resources that a lot of times they don't understand how to take advantage of those things and how to put themselves in position to win and to build upon that. It is scary because that's what parents are for. But a lot of people saying this because you can birth them makes you a parent. No, it really don't, because I know some trash-ass parents. I know some ain't shit-ass parents and it's the ones that actually try. Because you can give up on a child, you can pass them off on somebody else. Them pass them off on somebody else, you can pawn them off on somebody else, but it's those ones that struggle every day to make sure the lights stay on, there's food in the fridge, they have a comfortable place to live, they have no worries, except for what their main goal is or the tools and resources they are to grow as a human being. To understand that they have, like you're going to get your dick knocked in the dirt To the point where you got to learn how to stand back up, because those parents are put in those places to teach you how to grow up. Teach you how to stand back up. Because don't get this twist, don't get this misconstrued A parent does not have to be your biological parent, because my father told me a long time ago which is not my biological father.
Speaker 1:He was the person that picked up the pieces where my father never wanted to be there, so he wanted to see me grow and be more productive. So look at this this is what I'm saying. It could be my uncle, it could be my, my aunt, my grandmother, my mother, my sister, my brother. Anybody, anybody placed in your life, can take the role as a parent, but it's the, it's the, it's the methodology and the tools that they give you to be successful. Because, like I tell people all the time.
Speaker 1:The biggest thing about being a parent is you got to tell them it's okay to fail. It's okay, but as long as you fail and you learn from it, because a loss is never a loss. It's called a lesson for a reason Because you have to learn how to grow from that situation. You have to build from that situation. You have to put yourself in a better position than you were in yesterday, um, and you have to be encouraging, because everything's not going to be definite, everything's not going to be concrete.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you got to give them like a lot of times, like I thought that you could you. It's frustrating to you because they don't want to listen, but guess what you got to do? Let them learn. I mean, god forbid, they're going to fail, they're going to learn. Either they're going to do it the right way, the wrong way. It might be the wrong way in your eyes, but it might be the right way in theirs, but it might still succeed. They might not fail, but the best teacher in life is failure. So where do you go from there? You have to allow them to grow, because if you don't learn from your mistakes, you will never grow as an individual in society. And people fail to realize this. Like I tell people all the time like it's, it's, it's throughout. Without experiences, you don't learn to grow.
Speaker 1:Because, like people ask me all the time how did I learn that I like doing certain jobs? How did I not learn like I didn't like this situation? Shit, I had to go through it, I had to suck it up. I learned that I don't like working in plants. That fucking shit is fucking ass. That shit ain't for me, that shit is not for fucking me. I said because I mean I worked at one place I thought the fucking uh, managers were fucking retarded, because I mean shit, you, you, um, because I mean I'll tell you a situation. We were working blah, blah, shit. Somebody had just got.
Speaker 1:This dude came in working all the fucking time, hard as fuck, never had a fucking plane. This motherfucker never was late, always on time. He fucking around and hit a fucking pole on a forklift boom. Didn't fuck up the forklift, but he fucked the shit out that goddamn pole. You hear me. Next thing, you know they took him to the place. He popped positive for meth. He was the hardest working motherfucker in that plant. Do I condone him doing meth? No, but everybody has different band-aids for their traumas. They have different things for their their aches and pains. They they self-medicate a lot of times. Some people do it with meth, some people do it with marijuana, some two people do it with retail therapy, some people do it with different vices in their life. Um, but lo and behold, somebody else had an accident on a property.
Speaker 1:So these motherfuckers got the bright idea to drug test the entire fucking plant, the entire fucking plant. So say. They had 60 workers in the plant, motherfucking goddamn 25 of them bitches just pop positive for goddamn drugs. So these motherfuckers started panicking because this now has made the entire staff short. You can't just, I mean. And now you want to. You you're in full panic mode and and you want to send everybody to rehab saying it oh, you can't, you can't do this, you can't do that, you can't do that now because according to your policy and procedure, it's a zero tolerance campus. So what do you do now? What do you do? Because now your workforce has diminished, your, your constant rate, like your production rate, has decreased. Now you got to tell your clients you got, you got longer deadlines. What do you do? These motherfuckers came back, said, oh, we will never drug test the entire plant again. Oh, I forgot to say they found an eight ball of meth in a pipe somewhere on the floor in the facility. So that's that's what happened, um, but that shit was wild.
Speaker 1:Back then, when I was working in that plant, though, I mean, I walked out one day, you know, just for a little break, and I saw somebody getting ate out behind the guy that, like like shot, it was spread out on the picnic table. Getting ate out just in the open, um, with drugs about. As a result of it, I don't know, not my judgment, only thing I ain't say nothing. I ain't say nothing. I just turned around and walked off opposite direction because, lo and behold, that is not my business, shawty, hey you, hey, y'all. Y'all doing whatever y'all want to do and y'all break. I ain't finna do it, because ain't no time telling what kind of worms or spiders or creepy crawlers crawling up in it or crawling up out of it, but y'all doing you. Not my judgment, not my problem. I'm not y'all's boss, y'all do whatever y'all got to do to relax. No judgment here.
Speaker 1:I just got to fuck on because there's certain things that you got to realize in life. Everybody. Hey, your lane is your lane something. Everything ain't got to be told, everything ain't got to be seen. Hey, like I told somebody one day, that's your business, I ain't got shit to do with it. They don't pay me no extra to tell on you. They ain't giving no bonuses for how many niggas I snitch on.
Speaker 1:I don't give a fuck. Not my problem, not concerned. All I can know is what the fuck is going on with me. As long as it don't affect me, it don't concern me. Um, like, I don't give a fuck. Who you fucking? Who you sleeping with? Who pissing on you? Who, goddamn, who's stealing money from? I ain't got no concerns with it. That ain't none of my motherfucking business. But it's just like in life.
Speaker 1:What do we tell these kids? Certain situations you're going to be thrown in that you will have zero control over, zero effect, zero gripes, zero information on. And they just got to play out the way they play out, because everyone like. It's just like playing cards. You don't know the hand that you're dealt. You just got to make it work with whatever you're dealt. That's why I like Uno so good, that's why I like Spade so good, that's why I like Tonk or we shooting crap, 7-11, 2-3-12.
Speaker 1:Because you don't know what the roll of dice going to throw you. You just got to either take it on the chin and take it as a loss or take it as a win, or you keep rolling them dice until you hit, or you keep playing your spades until you got. Now you, you went. You go for wins. Sometimes your biggest wins are your biggest losses, and you just got to understand. It's all about a scale. Sometimes you just got to learn. Go through, go through the bullshit, just to learn. And that's what we got to tell our kids.
Speaker 1:Everything, everything ain't gonna be sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes something's gonna be bullshit and bullshit and bullshit. No matter which way you paint it, no matter which way it comes, it's going to be bullshit. Because, as you, as they say, man, they wonder why the sun don't shine everyday. Why doesn't the sun shine everyday? Because you got to have time For it to rest. Sometimes it's going to be gloomy. You got to have rain To make shit grow. You got to have rain to make shit grow. You got to have water. And if you always had sunshine, every day, shit things will wither up. Things wouldn't have time to rest, things wouldn't have to be re-evaluated. You wouldn't have to take a step back to re-evaluate your situation, because a lot of times people don't do that. They don't take the good with the bad, they don't take the ugly with the sad, they just take it as they take it and they don't know how to, you know, play chess and never checkers.
Speaker 1:They don't understand everybody can't be a pawn all the time. Some people got to elevate to become their rook. Some people got to elevate to the time. Some people got to elevate to become their rook. Some people got to elevate to become their bishop. Some people got to elevate to become their queen. Some people got to elevate to become their king. Because everybody cannot be a pawn, because, well, I'm sorry, let me refrain that Everybody can't be a king or queen or rook or bishop. Because you got to know how to maneuver on the chessboard and you got to understand certain moves you can make and certain moves you can't make.
Speaker 1:But it's about strategy, it's about life, and life is a humbling motherfucker. Like I tell people all the time, life's a bitch. You just got to learn which way to fuck her. And a lot of people don't understand that concept and that drive and that motivation and where that headspace comes from, because they're so focused on oh my God, I just fucked up again. I just fucked up again. Yeah, you might have fucked up, but how do you stand back up? Fucked up again. I just fucked up again. Yeah, you might have fucked up, but how do you stand back up? How do you change that coin from a negative to a positive, to where now you're in a better situation because of that fuck up?
Speaker 1:Because, hell, like I tell people all the time, my shit I done, lost jobs. I done had to move jobs. I had to eat shit because my job wasn't paying enough. So I had to go do some bullshit to make sure, like, go do a job I didn't want to do, just to make sure shit was rolling in, bills were getting paid.
Speaker 1:So you got to take that pride and put it to the side and just, you know, do some shit for the time being, just to say it's going to be okay, it's going to be all right. This is where we get, this is where we move, this is where our journey is taking us. We're not going to be here forever. We're going to be making progression. We're going to be making progress and a lot of people fail to realize that and they don't know where the hell it's going, because they just feel like doors are closing, walls are closing in, they can't breathe, they suffering, ok, shit, like I said, it ain't going to shine forever.
Speaker 1:That's like when my partners asked me the other day hey bro, shit, if you catch a win at the win, at the win, do you expect the downfall? No, because life is a roller coaster. You're going to have its ups, you're going to have its downs. Coaster, you're gonna have its ups, you're gonna have its downs, you're gonna have its lefts, you're gonna have its rights, you're gonna have its spirals, you're gonna have its like. You're gonna have its stops and goes, you're gonna have this, you're gonna have shit that happens. But it's all about how you play that bitch, like a chessboard to where you make your next move and where you make your next play, because you can't think about the here and now. You always got to plan for the future, like they say with chess. You got to plan two steps ahead, three steps ahead, four steps ahead, and that's all for us today, here, on Four Steps, only we out. Peace. We'll see you next time, oh, oh.
