Death By Adulting
A podcast focused on helping you make decisions today that you won't regret tomorrow. Hosted by Dr. Steve and Megan Scheibner. The Scheibners share wisdom and advice regarding marriage, parenting, dating, communication and even sex.
Death By Adulting
Daughters? Tips To Deal With Teen Drama and Laughing Through Life's Surprises
How do elephants, orcas, and dwarf mongooses deal with their mother-in-laws? Get ready for a wild ride as Megan Scheibner and Dr. Steve kick off this episode of "Death by Adulting." We start with a humorous exploration of animal kingdom in-laws and then dive into Megan’s hilarious stories about her daughters, Emma and Molly, a.k.a. "the criminals." Their childhood and college escapades are sure to leave you in stitches!
Ever wondered how the Normans and Vikings shaped Irish history, or why men seem to organize their lives in such peculiar ways? We touch on these fascinating cultural influences and segue into the delicate balance of matriarchal and patriarchal elements in today’s society. Plus, we share practical strategies for managing in-law relationships. From asking before advising to respecting new family boundaries, we emphasize the importance of open communication and mutual respect.
Ending on a note of surprise, Megan and Captain Steve reveal the shocking truths DNA testing can uncover about your ancestry, sometimes shaking up your sense of identity. Then, we can't forget those essential adulting tips like checking food expiration dates and dressing safely for air travel. Wrap it all up with a teaser for our next episode, where we’ll humorously discuss five surefire ways to ruin good sex. Join us for a blend of laughter, wisdom, and invaluable life advice!
On this episode of Death by Adulting, we'll discover what elephants, orcas and dwarf mongooses mongooses, mongooses, something like that have in common. Hint, you think you got mother-in-law problems. You ain't seen nothing yet. Followed by how to prevent your in-laws from becoming outlaws. Five strategies for success becoming outlaws. Five strategies for success. Next, excuse me, don't get your dna profile. If you can't handle the truth, that's gonna be a good one. Next, megan's adulting boss. Tip of the day. And a new segment ask captain steve how to dress for air travel. It it might just save your life. Plus much, much more. All on this episode of Death by Adulting. Roll the intro.
Speaker 2:It's Death by Adulting. I'm your host, Megan Scheibner, and here I am with my co-host, Dr Steve.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yes, how are you today? Good, how are you, I'm well, thank you.
Speaker 1:I've got my Just Pour Gravy On it t-shirt. Okay, if you can see that, just Pour Gravy On it. And that's my answer to just about everything in life. It is basically just about everything it is. Basically it doesn't. If it's you know what?
Speaker 2:just pour gravy on it and it'll be better.
Speaker 1:So that's the difference between you and me there's a certain philosophy there that works, and if you're a man, you understand what I'm talking about, and if you're not, then you're just out of luck, right? So on the last uh podcast we talked, you asked me a question about what my favorite boy stories were, because we have four boys and four girls. Right, my favorite boy stories. All right, I'm going to return the favor now on this one. And what? What's your favorite girl story from our four girls?
Speaker 2:my favorite girl story. Well, it's going to involve the criminals, and you know who I'm talking about are two middle-ish daughters.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The ones with the real close set eyes. Yeah, they won't even care.
Speaker 2:They won't care if I say their names. It's Emma and Molly, and you know, shout out to the criminals. But they were best friends from the time. They were children, like baby babies, and their criminal activity was always combined with one another. So one of my favorite stories, because those of you who have kids you'll understand this. Sometimes they lie and it just doesn't even make any sense like what. You wouldn't have been in trouble if you told the truth. So I don't get this, but emma and molly were habitual bed. Get out of hers get out of betters get out of betters.
Speaker 2:That's the term I want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were get out of betters and so, especially at nap time, because they shared a room and we would lay them down and about five minutes later you'd hear the party starting and it would be giggles and jumping and all the things right. And so one day I thought, well, I'm just going to catch the little criminals. So I, you know, tucked them in, kiss them, have a nice nap time, went outside, stood right outside the door I think it was about two and a half minutes and I heard the party start and I I burst through the door to catch them.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:Molly, who had on a little dress with a tie at the back, was tied to Emma's bed, which was across the room from Molly's bed, and I looked at her and I said what are you doing? And she looked at me straight in the face and said I did not get out of bed. It just didn't make any sense yeah, we had a lot of those with those two. They ended up being college roommates, which we found out they were going to be roomed together. We were like, oh, we should pray for the faculty.
Speaker 1:We should warn the school is actually what we did.
Speaker 2:Hurricane Molly was coming.
Speaker 1:I did tell the dean or the president of the university. I was sitting with him at the stands once and I said you're about to inherit Hurricane Molly.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And he understood later what that meant.
Speaker 2:He did, he did Quickly, he understood he did Quickly, he understood. That's okay.
Speaker 1:Well, good, All right. Yeah, that's right. I do remember that episode with her, you know, adamantly looking you in the eye and saying I am not out of bed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that became a thing. Every time she lied to us, it was a tell, she would say. I know, definitely we were like, oh, she'd take, it like, okay, I'm lying to you right now. Right now, ding, ding, ding, ding, I'm flying to you right now.
Speaker 1:Right now, ding ding, ding ding. Oh good times. It was so much fun right.
Speaker 2:Looking back, at it, looking back on it, right.
Speaker 1:So in the tease in the beginning, yes. I said what are elephants, orcas and dwarf mongooses? I'm just going to stick with mongooses.
Speaker 2:Is there such a? Thing?
Speaker 1:I don't think mongoose is a thing Are.
Speaker 2:I don't think mongoose is a thing. Are there giant mongooses? I think geese are a thing, but I don't think mongooses is a thing. Do you think that giant mongooses are RUSs?
Speaker 1:You're assuming that there's giant mongooses because there's dwarf mongooses. It could just be that there's normal mongoose and then there's dwarf mongooses.
Speaker 2:I don't know Scope for the imagination. If you know anything about what?
Speaker 1:we're trying to talk about. Put it in the comments down below, and I don't want to hear your nastiness about it, but just give us your thoughts on it. Maybe we get educated on all that. So what do all three of them have in common? What they have in common is this they are very matriarchal. So there's patriarchal driven by the dad, there's matriarchal driven by the moms, and we're talking about mother-in-laws right now. We could be talking about father-in-laws, but let's pick on mother-in-laws for a minute. It's much more fun. They're an easy mark. They're an easy mark.
Speaker 1:And so elephants, the matriarch of the herd, if you will, stays with the herd. So you get, you are born, you go off, find a mate, you come back and you're part of the herd. And mom is there for up to get this a hundred years and she calls all the shots Remember, elephants don't ever forget anything. So she's basically the collective um conscience of the entire group. She knows where the food is, she knows where the water is, she calls the movements to the next territory and the migrations and all who gets to be with who mom calls all the shots for up to a hundred years.
Speaker 1:Imagine getting married and having your mother-in-law move in with you and then she calls all the shots for the next hundred years. Okay, that's what it would be like to be an elephant. Same is true with orcas and the same is true with these children you're very lucky right so you think you've got mother-in-law problems? You've got nothing compared to the elephants of the Orcus and the Monogamous.
Speaker 2:I just want you to picture an elephant. A hundred-year-old elephant has to be just one big wrinkle. Call in the shots, yeah right, it would just be a super wrinkle and interestingly, when we were looking at this, there's one group and it's it's gray wolves that are patriarchal, but they're in a continual fight to see who's in charge, which makes total sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause, cause dudes are constantly fighting each other?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the woman just says uh, no argument, I'm in charge, but for the guys they're fighting for, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's much more. It's much more subtle with women. They just kind of like pull out their stilettos and put them on and go.
Speaker 2:Oh no no, I'm in charge, right, yeah, kind of do the.
Speaker 1:You know, nobody else's in charge, but the men are constantly fighting over it, which is just barbaric and stupid. But if, if, okay, so let me ask you a question. This is off the script. This is into the much, much more stuff part of what we do. Um, if, uh, uh, if the world were run by, if all there were on the planet were just women, what would the planet look like?
Speaker 2:it would be very clean, it would be very organized, you would know where everything is and, and at any one time, half of the women would not be speaking to the other half of the women and the ones who were speaking would be, uh, braiding each other's hair or going out for coffee.
Speaker 1:And that group of who wasn't talking to, who would be constantly shifting and changing, oh, always shifting, yeah.
Speaker 2:In other words, you're in and she's out, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, that's fair.
Speaker 2:That's fair. That's pretty much how it would be. Who am I?
Speaker 1:to argue with that. I'm just a man. Yeah, if the world were just men let me feel that one for a minute if the world were just men, it would be barbaric. Um, there would be just one war constantly, which it kind of is now I mean, but but it would be even worse. I, when we went to um, we went to ireland a few years ago and, uh, in dublin there is the um, is it trinity university?
Speaker 2:yeah, trinity university.
Speaker 1:Okay, people will know it from like harry potter and those movies, the ancient library yeah, is there at trinity university and with all the old books and and you've seen it on many, many movies.
Speaker 1:It's a, it's a popular filming location and in there there's a thing called the book of kells and the kells were somewhere around the 13th 14th century and and there they wrote down a historical account of what was going on in Ireland at the time and it was really pretty simple.
Speaker 1:They could have just stuck it on one page and had it repeated, because the Normans or the Vikings would come down from Norway. They would come down and they would sack the entire country of Ireland. They'd burn it to the ground. They'd take the women back as trophies and then they'd go back, take the women back as trophies, and then they go back and then four or five years later, after they got bored, they're like, hey, they must have rebuilt down there, let's go back and sack it again. So they get in their little boats and they come down and they burn the whole thing down again, take some more trophy brides and go back to Norway. And they did that over and over and over again and you'd think at some point the people in Ireland would just get kind fed up with it or figure out how to defend themselves against the normans. Didn't really ever happen that is very male.
Speaker 2:I, I and in the much, much more. I'm reading a book right now that talks about jim elliott, who some people would know he was a missionary who was martyred yeah but the tribe he was going to. Their favorite thing to do was sit around the fire and talk about every wound when they killed someone, so then I stabbed him here and then I put him there and occasionally, if they got tired of their wife, they'd just bury her alive, which is way off the range.
Speaker 1:Uh, there is another thing if men oh well, there there would be, um, there would be no organization, there would just be piles of things everywhere. So men organize in piles, like I know where, I know personally, where 40 of my stuff is most of the time, some of the time, and that those piles are here, there and everywhere, and then, and then there would be an odor to everything. There'd be persistent guy smell. But this is the other one?
Speaker 2:you don't even realize that I don't do it, but you do it and all your sons do it. Your refrigerators would be mostly empty, except for 50 condiments like four kinds of mustard and mayo and ketchup and men and relish and food. It's a food group.
Speaker 1:It is a food group yeah, condiments are a food group. Yeah, that's good I agree with that, it's fair. So the so uh, uh, this whole idea of elephants and orcas and dwarf mongooses being very matriarchal. And we have, we. How would you describe our current culture? Matriarchal, patriarchal, something in between?
Speaker 2:It's definitely trending matriarchal. I mean I believe that it's. I am becoming more and more I am woman here, but there's a fight for that. I mean I believe that I am becoming more and more I am woman, here we are, but there's a fight for that. I mean it depends where you are in the culture. Right, in some far streams of Christian culture it's very patriarchal which is out of balance.
Speaker 1:That would be the extremes Right and in some far.
Speaker 2:Strands of liberal culture it's extremely matriarchal and there is a happy balance. Strands of liberal culture it's extremely matriarchal and there is there is a happy balance. But you know, one of the things that we we end up talking about in counseling a lot is in-law problems, because because we talked in the last episode about paradigms, and when couples come into us and they're having these kind of paradigm battles, it often goes back to but my parents expect, but her parents expect.
Speaker 1:The extended family issues.
Speaker 2:Yeah and there's a lot of in-law issues. I did a social media question and answer thing about in-law problems and I was inundated with in-law problems.
Speaker 1:Right, so Okay. So let's pivot then to our next segment. Let's talk about what we introduced in the beginning, the five strategies for dealing with in-laws. What we introduced in the beginning, the five strategies for dealing with in-laws, and, and. And so help us, help us out a little bit, Megan. With the two there's, I always get confused about who's an in-law and who isn't. Yeah, so there's the younger couple and the older couple.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, and that's how we'll refer to them younger and older, because I have in-law children.
Speaker 1:So we would be in the category now at this point of being the older couple, right Cause we have children who are married.
Speaker 2:Yes, so I'm a mother-in-law, he's a father-in-law, but to my young, to the younger couple which would be our child and their spouse Um, there are in-laws too. I have a daughter-in-law, you, we have son-in-laws, and so there's older couples and younger couples, and and both sides of it can really mess us up and, honestly, we have five strategies for success, but if you just flip-flop them, they, if you did the opposite, you would absolutely have five strategies for disaster. And so often the way we recognize what's wrong is it sticks out like a sore thumb. And so, as we're going through these positive strategies, maybe the question to ask yourself is well, we're really, this area is really rough in our in-law relationship. Are we failing in this area? Right, because because we can't, we can recognize what's wrong as we're exposed to what's right.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let me introduce the strategy number one, right, and that's this, and we're going to talk in this one about old, the older couple yes, this is for older you and me who have children who are married um so we have a daughter-in-law it would be for for us, for older couples, all right, uh, and I want you to just kind of riff on this one for a little bit. What is, uh, what is number one?
Speaker 2:number one is this ask, don't inform. On the day your child walks down the aisle and starts this new leave and cleave relationship, you have lost the right to tell them what to do. We need to ask them if they want our advice. They're a new family unit and we are on the outside of it. It's interesting when we teach marriage conferences, we talk about how that word leave in Genesis that you hear, for leave and cleave literally means to discard like an old sofa.
Speaker 2:Now, I don't want to be treated like an old sofa, obviously, but. But our relationship has changed and so sometimes, um, I'll look in you know 30,000 foot view of my son and daughter-in-law and think, oh, they're really struggling in that area. I have some ideas that might help. I don't get to come through the door and go, hey look, you guys, if you would just do this, this and this, you wouldn't be struggling in these areas. But I can come in and say I have some ideas I think might be helpful. Would you like to hear them? Which leads to kind of a subtext of this, which is we also have to give up any right to expectations. How I raised my children is how I raised my children. They get to raise their children the way they feel is proper. Um, how I ran my home is how I ran my home. How we did things was our family. They get to have their own family. We need to ask, not inform.
Speaker 1:We don't get to barge through the door that way, and I would say what you're describing right now, all those aspects of it take extreme self-control on our part, because it's really easy to say, look, I've been there and done that, I got more experience than you do, I changed your diaper right and kind of pull out those trump cards and say, well, I'm going to tell you how it is. And you have to and here's the expression, you have to earn the right to be heard with your adult children, whatever phase of life they're in, whether they're married or not, having children or not, you have to earn the right to be heard. And that means you know now you have a foot in the door already, because you're their mom and dad and many times they'll want to come to us to ask us for advice. But there's a difference of asking, not telling, or informing Right, we can, we can barge in, and this is true of counseling Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And let me make a little plug for what we do for counseling. We've, megan and I, have been counseling for 30 years. We have people in for intensive weekends. Often we do FaceTime counseling over the internet, right, and all of that stuff.
Speaker 1:And if you are at a point and you think you know what my marriage is hurting and I think we need to talk to somebody, um, put the stigma aside for a minute, All right, and and reach out to us. Go to characterhealthcom, click on the contact us tab. It comes straight to us. It doesn't go to anybody else and say, hey, can we talk a little bit about your counseling deal, Cause I think maybe we need it and we'll start the conversation.
Speaker 1:It's a very gentle way to start the conversation, but, having said that, we've counseled a lot of people over the years and one of the things that we find is all right this notion of if you, if you, want advice to be received, it's got to be asked for. You can't just burst the door open and say I'm going to tell you the way it is. If you do that, it's always going to be resisted. It's always going to be resisted. So whether you're the parent of an adult child or not doesn't make any difference. You've got to be much more subtle about your approach and say do you want to hear what I have to say? Are you asking me for my advice?
Speaker 2:It's humbling.
Speaker 1:It's very humbling.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And we, we would say to our kids two or three times are you asking me for advice? All right, I'm just wanting to re-init it then. I'm not, I'm not barging in on this?
Speaker 2:No, no, mom, I want to know what?
Speaker 1:what do I do in this situation? Okay, well, my advice would be now and now it goes over much better than if you just say hey, you know what You're all messed up and I think you ought to do this, you know yeah.
Speaker 2:And just a couple things from what you said. You said we do have a foot in the door. That that's absolutely true. But if you shove that door open with your advice, shut and it's going to get nailed shut and then you'll have no opportunity to share any type of wisdom that you have. And now I want to speak to moms just for a minute, and from another mother. All right, but stereotypes come from predictable, repeated practices. There's a reason that there are mother-in-law jokes practices. There's a reason that there are mother-in-law jokes and it's because mothers, just by the nature of being a mother, we're more invested, we're more intent, we're more observational of what's going on with my child, what's going on and then, and then we open our mouth when we shouldn't. And you can change that. That's a paradigm. We talked about paradigms last episode.
Speaker 1:You can change that and make the mother-in-law joke non-existent in your relationship with your child and your daughter-in-law or your son-in-law okay, ask, don't inform number one number two, and this is now for aimed at the younger couple yes so it would be our children who are married yes, our daughter-in-law or our son-in-law this is how they can be aimed at that age group. All right, what's number two?
Speaker 2:Number two is this Don't revert to childhood when you go home. And do you want to talk about this, Steve?
Speaker 1:Well, it's really easy. You and I fell into this trap, right, and I think everybody does, because growing up in that home and especially if your parents still live in the same home that you grew up in and you go back, it's really easy to revert back to childhood. Yeah, and you're an adult, you're, you might be the CEO of a company, right, you might have a million followers on whatever and you're a big deal. Well, you're not a big deal when you go home, and it's easy for you to fall into the trap of acting like a 12 year old when you go home and being manipulative of your parents and go. You know they never include me in anything. I can't believe my mom talks down to me like this, like that.
Speaker 2:And there you are Leaving your dishes out.
Speaker 1:I had friends growing up they called it sitting in a pile of poop. And you go home and you sit in a pile of poop because you're not getting your way. Hey, you know what? Hey, you know what? Go home and be an adult, be yourself. But be an adult, don't revert back. But you got to think about that a little bit. All right, it's easy, it's really super easy, to revert back to that old person, unless you are deliberately and intentionally trying not to. So you have to have a little conversation with yourself. Maybe get your spouse involved in this conversation and say honey, will you help me out? When you see me start doing the kid routine when I go home, will you kind of elbow me or say hey, steve, knock it off, wake up?
Speaker 1:I realized that after a while, if I wanted to be treated with respect, I had to act respectable. If I acted like a kid, my parents reverted back to being my parents and we'd get in those old bad situations where we were at each other and disrespecting each other and I'd say I'm never coming back here again. And so again, if you want to be treated like an adult, act like an adult, bump up the standards, smile, you can be good about the whole thing and say, hey, mom, I appreciate what you do for me around here and, I think, be encouraging, be uplifting, be praising of your, of your parents. Uh, don't go home, though. Here's another thing when I say don't go home and fall into the role of the child we have.
Speaker 1:There are some kids and families that are eager to become, now, the next adult, the next parent in the family, right, and so they now. And there's, and folks, there's going to be a phase in your life where you have to be the parent to your aging parents, but that will happen naturally. It'll become very obvious when that age comes. Don't try to rush into it, because I can guarantee you you're going to get a lot of pushback from your lucid, able to manage themselves adult parents. And when you get to that age, you're going to be the same way. You're going to be like Whoa, dude, hold on here a second, I'm fine. Now I'm hoping, I'm praying at the point where it's time to take the keys away from me. I'll be, I'll be there and say, hey, you know what? You're right. Here they are.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But that ain't that day, ain't today. Yeah, a couple of them tried to push it.
Speaker 2:I had cataract surgery and they asked if our will was filled out Like Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. It's just my boss. Now, just a little thing to add to what you said, steve. Uncommunicated issues become bigger issues. So if you're the younger couple and you're coming in and you are acting like an adult and you're still being treated as a child, just have a conversation with your parents of you know, I'm really trying to live responsibly as an adult and these things are hard. But older parents, it's okay to say don't come in my house and act like a child. We've had a couple of those conversations where we said I'm not, I'm not your maid, you know, um, because you all want to coexist as adults together.
Speaker 1:Right, the two sides of that, and I'll share a little story here in a second. The two sides of that are what you just described. It's easy to go back to your parents' house and do the throw your stuff on the ground and leave your dishes just sitting out and all of those kind of things that if you were a neighbor or a guest invited into the home would be considered exceedingly rude.
Speaker 1:But you're the kid and your parents clean up after you. I always use this example when I'm talking to groups and I say you know, one of the big blunders I made when we first got married was I just threw my clothes on the floor when they were dirty and when I was growing up, apparently I don't know, some female came and picked them up and did something magical with them in that big white machine and then they came back all smelling good and folded them back in my drawer and then I wore them again and I threw them on the floor and the magic happened again. So I got married and my clothes were dirty. So I threw them on the floor and my wife, the fair and lovely Megan, said what are you doing? I said I don't know. That's what you do with dirty clothes.
Speaker 1:Well, she wasn't in on that, that magic right that she was supposed to take care of, and we had some fights over it. I realized that I had. I had to bump it up, right. I had to be considerate of her. And so she, she said I'll do the laundry, but I'm not picking it up, I'm not turning it right side out, I'm not chasing around after you. Don't make my house look like a pigsty. Take your clothes and put them in the hamper and that's all the way to the hamper and turn them right side out first. Well, you would have thought I was giving a death sentence.
Speaker 2:Empty your pockets.
Speaker 1:But here I am acting like a kid. After I've been married I'm like that's really hard to do. I can't do all that. Well, you can, all right, that's one thing. Now the other flip side of it is you're the younger couple. Your mom comes to visit, spend a few days with you, and my mom was really hard on us.
Speaker 2:I know where this is going.
Speaker 1:Well, my mom was really hard on us in our child training.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:She thought that we were too strict with our kids and she didn't ask, she just informed. So she would weigh in and she would say I think you're being too strict and I think you know. I said, mom, you know, help me out here a little bit, I'm trying to do the best I can. And I explained it to my mom. I said, mom, you worked all the time. She worked 12 hours a day to put food on the table, right?
Speaker 1:My mom had terrible taste in men and so my biological father was a drunk. That's why my parents got divorced when I was two years old, because he was a drunk and everything that goes with that. I said, and then you remarried a man who was even a worse drunk than my biological dad, so my stepfather was an angry, mean drunk. My biological father was a happy drunk, at least, but a drunk. And I said look, mom, I had no positive male role models growing up at all. And I said I'm doing the best I can here, so cut me a break Right.
Speaker 1:And that that conversation with her helped her turn the corner. And after a while she realized that us having structure and routine and organization with our children and, yes, discipline actually made for delightful children and the kids were loving, and they were loving of grandma and they were loving of us. And the kids won her over after a while. But that conversation I had with her was gentle but firm. I was taking the role of an adult in my world and not falling into the mom. Why don't you stop picking on me, you know? Don't be a whiner. Just be the adult and explain it to them. You can do that. And she turned the corner and our relationship became much better after that.
Speaker 2:You didn't share the best story, though.
Speaker 1:Well, okay, sorry, here we go. So mom came to visit once.
Speaker 2:Right after a baby was born.
Speaker 1:My mother was a rather short woman, very short, and all of the pictures on her walls in her home were on her level, because she was very short.
Speaker 2:You'd walk in and go geez. Why is the picture down there? Why is the?
Speaker 1:picture on the baseboard. But you know she was short. So she came into my house and said you know, your pictures are too high, just like that. She pronounced it your pictures are too high, you need to lower them. She said I'll help you with that. And I said no, no, mom, they're at my eye level. They're Megan's. We like our pictures where they are Leave them alone.
Speaker 1:Now, she was very upset about that. So it was a Sunday afternoon, we all were taking a nap and in the middle of nap time we're sleeping and I hear this Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Oh, it occurred to me. Oh, she's not. She's not lowering our pictures. Oh, yes, she was.
Speaker 1:So I go downstairs and there she is with a hammer up on a little step stool lowering the pictures. And it caught red-handed. You know, she's like like this, but real belligerent. I said, mom, you cannot lower my pictures? Fine, fine, if you're gonna be'm just going to go home, I'm going to go to the airport right now, I'm going to pack my bags, I'm going to leave, I'm going to go home early. And she was, you know, and she was throwing a little hissy fit, acting like a child. And I said, mom and we have nice little talk about it I said, mom, you have to understand I wouldn't come into your house and do that. You can't come into my house and do that. You're just over the line, right? And so she kind of calmed down and stayed for the next couple of days and went home at the appropriate time.
Speaker 2:But so here's a much more. Here's a much more added for that. So for you younger couples um, notice, steve talked to his mom. So if there's an issue with the, the child of the in-law should, should do at least the initial conversation. Like I didn't weigh in with Steve's parents to start with, he didn't weigh in with mine. Then we came together often, but that that will help the in-law relationship.
Speaker 1:It will absolutely help. All right, so number one on the five strategies was ask, don't inform. Number two is don't revert to childhood when you go home. Number three now is for older couples. What is it?
Speaker 2:It's be available, but within reason. Because when you're, when you're, especially when your last child leaves and they move off in the world, it's time for you and your spouse to turn toward each other again, and if everything is availability to your kids and their spouses, you're going to rob that relationship. So be available, but but this is going to sound harsh, don't let yourself be bullied because it's okay to say no. Um, if you think about it, the younger couples often say no, you know. No, we're not going to do that. No, we can't come over. No, we can't. It's okay, as the older couple, to say that too, and what it does is. It's a great model for the younger couple of we need to be couples focused first before we pour out to everybody else, and it's unnatural for a mother to say no, because our whole lives we've been focused on filling our children's needs. But it is a season of life to be available, but only within reason.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the kids, as children, are very demanding and it goes with the territory.
Speaker 2:but as they're needy right, they're needy.
Speaker 1:And then, as they become adults, hopefully that that lessons right, but it doesn't always. Sometimes they'll stay needy and demanding.
Speaker 1:And again, the helicopter parent, the resume parent, the, the snowplow parent, they, they feed all of that right, because they like the helicopter parent, the resume parent, the snowplow parent, they feed all of that right Because they like that self-importance in their role as a parent and so they feed it, so that child now goes into adulthood and keeps demanding, demanding, demanding of the parent and they think it's wonderful. I think it's very destructive to this relationship. There's a point where we are empty nesters and we get to enjoy that part of our life. We never really stopped parenting. I mean, in the big picture, we always have a role as their parents, but it needs to change and needs to morph over the years.
Speaker 1:A healthy part of that is to not be so available to them all the time, because they will. If you are, they'll be just as demanding and they'll fail to launch. They won't take on, they'll figure it out on their own. Like sometimes um, I'll get an email. You think about this at work, right, those of you working in the workplace? Um, you get an email and it's from the same person all the time. There's that. It's that 20% of the people that work for you and you go. You know what. I'm not going to reply to that because I know that they're going to figure it out on their own.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I. I'm not going to do this for them, they're just being lazy and sure enough, if you let it go a little bit, they'll figure it out on their own and it's it's healthy for our relationship. But the talk about the texting, you know, and the cause we have a group text with our kids, which is a riot. It's absolutely very much fun yeah, very much fun, um, but they'll they'll reach out and they'll go.
Speaker 2:Uh, mom, I need to call you and talk to you. Oh, I get.
Speaker 1:And if you don't get back to him right away, what do you get?
Speaker 2:then I get mom in all caps mom, and then I get mom mom mom and then I get what could you possibly be doing? That's more important than being my mother, which I always respond with lots of things lots of things, lots of things. I actually have a life, yeah, and the kind of the downside of always being available and not having that within reason you know in parentheses there is at some point they aren't going to need you and you're going to be hurt.
Speaker 2:Like well, I'm always available, and now they don't want me to do that and you? There has to be that separation and letting them go be their own family, because you're just going to build expectations that's why investing in this primary relationship is so important.
Speaker 1:So we'll come back, we'll do a bunch of episodes about how to make this relationship really, really good, rock solid rock solid.
Speaker 2:All right, so number one was don't ask but inform.
Speaker 1:Don't revert to childhood when you get home. That's number two. Number three was be available within reason. Number four was don't share your spouse's shortcomings with your parents without permission.
Speaker 2:That's really huge, that's huge, that's really huge, because what happens?
Speaker 1:who's the same day, younger or older.
Speaker 2:This is for younger couples. Younger couples don't I mean, I suppose it fits with older couples too, although you're probably more likely to share with your own child if you're mad at your spouse. But for you, younger couples, don't have an argument with your spouse and then go talk to your parents about it, Because the problem is, you'll fix it with your spouse, but they're left with lingering, harsh or bitter feelings toward their now in-law, their daughter-in-law or their son-in-law. We need to be so careful, and I would say this goes beyond just your parents. There's no one that you should be sharing your fights with your spouse's shortcomings with without and here's the caveat their permission.
Speaker 1:But what about the person that says well, I just I need to have a confidant. I need to. I need to have somebody I can get it off my chest with and uh, and that's healthy for me. It's important for me to to have that outlet. What?
Speaker 2:do you?
Speaker 1:what do you say about?
Speaker 2:that A couple of things. One is there's the only place that we're told to vent, according to the scriptures, is to God. Right, he's always there to hear us vent. You're not going to find anywhere else that says, oh and go run to somebody and vent. But the second is there were times that I had like I needed to run something by another female and say, you know, does this seem right?
Speaker 2:But I had asked Steve ahead of time who he trusted me to talk to, and it was a small group. It was a small group, but I would say to him you know what we're really struggling in this area. I just feel like I need to talk to somebody else about it and do I have your permission? Now, this wasn't really the case in our families because, just because of who our parents were, but but with our own kids, hopefully they could say to their spouse can I run this by my mom, or can I run this by your mom or your dad? You know we ought to have that reputation for wise counsel that they can come to us, but but as the older person, I always want to make sure that their spouse has said they can come.
Speaker 1:Sure, and the intentional or maybe unintentional by-product of you doing that was I felt really respected by you. I felt like she's cutting me in, she's not talking about me behind my back. I don't want to. I don't want to hear later that you're gossiping about me or talking to me to somebody. But you, you showed me the respect of saying Steve, I just need to talk to another woman about this. Is it okay with you if I reach out to? And the answer was always yes, yeah, right, it was always yes, but it was done in a very respectful way and I think that's that's hugely important, that that permission part of it can't be overstated.
Speaker 2:Right. It's mutual respect and it shows respect to your parents that that they can trust. You're not going to come just dump all your problems on them and then go. Go, be fine, because moms and dads will carry that Right and they'll worry like, oh, is this marriage in trouble?
Speaker 1:And we, we told our all of our adult children as they were getting married, the ones that are married uh, before they walked the aisle, we said look, you're on your own now. I mean we're not abandoning you, but but we're allowing you to launch into your new life and we're not going to intervene, we're not going to meddle, we're not going to stick our nose in the tent and there's lots of expressions that go with this. We're going to wait for you to reach out to us and if you call us and start to vent or gripe about your spouse, the first thing we're going to say is did you ask them if it's okay to talk to me about this? Right, that's a, sometimes that's a real showstopper. Yeah, now you know they go. Well, okay, you know what I don't want to hear about it. You go back and talk to them if they say it's okay, and then they would.
Speaker 2:They would go back and they'd say, hey, I talked to my, my spouse, and they said it's okay to talk to you. I mean, and we have actually talked about this and we've said we want to be the laid back in-laws, we want to be the chill in-laws, whatever term you want that our kids go, our parents would be fine with it, right, yeah, um, these things help you do that.
Speaker 1:What's true? Anybody that you dump something on, they never get the conclusion of it. When it gets resolved, they never hear that part and they, so they now have a bad opinion of you or your spouse. Uh, more specifically, because you told them all the negative things about the person you're married to and then when you two make up, they don't. They're not part of that. They're like oh, now they're lovey dovey again. What's the deal here? I thought he was an absolute, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or I can't trust him with her, especially with daughters.
Speaker 1:What?
Speaker 2:we're doing is we want to build bridges of relationships with our in-law children, uh, not walls of separation, okay.
Speaker 1:Right, so, uh, the final one now is for both couples, both couples, um, and why don't you start us off with that one?
Speaker 2:okay. So the the general topic of it would be ask how you can help. And and that's just an adulting truth, think of them more importantly than yourself. Ask how I can help. So, um, older couples like us say you know how can I come alongside and help you? Uh, you know, sometimes it's with the children. Um, you know, could I read to the kids out loud once a week? Would that be a help to you? Uh, could I take one child out of the mix?
Speaker 2:And those of you who have many children know how different your home is when just one is missing. Right, find ways to ask to help. But the younger couple same for you, instead of your parents having to come to you saying you know, like we're getting older, we can't do this on our own. Is anybody available to help us? Be the one that says you know how can I help you? And we have several of our kids that often call and say hey, what's going on with you guys? Anything I can help you with, and it just means the world to us. But what it does is it builds those bridges of relationship where we both feel cared for both sides of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, excellent, good stuff. So there it is. There's your five strategies for how to prevent your in-laws becoming your outlaws. Yeah, right, something that you don't like. Number one for older couples ask don't inform. Number two, for the younger couple don't revert to your childhood when you go home. It's so easy to do that. Number three, again, is for older couples be available within reason. You need to be a little aloof. Not available 24-7, right. That helps them to launch and get out on their own. Fourth one is for younger couples Don't share your spouse's shortcomings with your parents without getting permission from the spouse to share any shortcoming. If they give you permission, then go ahead, but if they don't, then you have to keep it to yourself, or maybe you take it to somebody else, like a pastor or a counselor or somebody who is a professional in that area. And then, finally, number five for both couples ask how you can help.
Speaker 1:That's a proactive way of approaching the whole thing instead of a highly reactive thing, which it could become rather easily, really quickly yeah, very, very quickly, okay, so let's let's segue now into our, our next segment, uh, which is titled excuse me, this is all you don't get your dna profile if you can't handle the truth, all right, and we all know that famous scene with jack nicholson where he's yelling at tom cruise and he says you can't handle the truth, right, you can't handle the truth.
Speaker 1:And uh, and so the the issue here is you better emotionally be ready to handle the truth. Uh, if you're going to get your dna done, so a number of years ago, it's probably five or six years ago now uh, I think we did. Uh, ancestrycom was the one that we went through and uh, the fair and lovely megan right over here, she had gotten her dna done and hers was exactly what she thought it would be. Now my last name is Scheibner. That's my dad's last name. My mother's maiden name was Schaefer. There's not two more German names than Scheibner, herr Scheibner and Herr Schaefer, right, or Frau Schaefer.
Speaker 1:And so I was expecting to be a hundred percent German, which is what I was told my whole life. I even took German in high school. I took it for four years in high school and two years in college, and I was a German exchange student for roots back to my roots, you know, later hosing and all of that stuff, and and uh, yeah, so, uh, I was a hundred percent in on the German thing. And then I went into ancestrycom and I got my DNA results back. All right, this is not for the faint of heart, but I am 0.0% German. None, zero, zip, zilch, nada, none. It's a very disappointing moment. It's like that commercial that they run for one of the DNA things where the guy thought he was, I don't know, swiss or, and he ends up he's being, you know, norwegian or whatever it it was. I don't know, it's one of those others. And uh, so now he's got to make a total transformation and I I had to do that as well. So, again, those are lots of fun, those things to do.
Speaker 1:So what did I end up? Finding out that I was all right. So this is fun. I want to bring you in on this conversation. So I was 51 plus percent italian, yes, which explains this, right. I? I can't talk if you tie my hands. Explains this right I can't talk If you tie my hands down. I'm just like I can't talk without my hands. I got to do this and I love Italian food and and I'm a little darker skin it's the middle of the winter right now. We're both kind of pasty white at this point, but in the summer I darken up to a lovely Mediterranean tan.
Speaker 2:If you didn't look so much like your mother mother I would have thought you were adopted. When we got your dna results yes, right, that's, that's correct.
Speaker 1:Right, because I didn't look anything like my dad anyways. Um, so, uh, 51 plus percent italian, and and they show you even on those dna results, where your dna is located. And mine was located right in the center of Rome, the city of Rome, and it said Vatican city. So I've got two theories here. And then what's the other 49%? The other 49% was Welsh, british, scottish, uk-ish, uk-ish, right and so. But here's the connection Britannia, great Britain, got its name from the Romans. When the Romans went and occupied those islands, they gave it a name and the name was Britannia, and the name stuck. So there were Roman soldiers that went and occupied the British Isles as we know them today, and they obviously would stay there. They'd meet local girls, they'd settle down, they'd start a farm, they'd get married and they'd have children. So you get the two DNA mixes of the islands and Italy, which is what I am, but I I figured I probably wasn't a common foot soldier Of course not.
Speaker 1:No, I, because I'm more of a sit back and wave at the crowds kind of guy, you know. And so I figured I was probably some sort of Senator or governor that came there on a, on a trip just to govern, govern, to see what was going on, and and I might have gotten I don't know a disease or hurt myself and had to stay, and so I ended up staying on the islands and married, you know, a local princess or something like that, and and the two of us got going and it got, we had a family, and that's that's how started. So I was some sort of thing, or the other one is this is much more interesting than that one I was the illegitimate child of some pope back in who knows the 7th or 8th century, your imagination.
Speaker 1:But somehow the British part had to get involved. So I don't know if they took slaves and brought them back to Vatican City or not. But I think there's a much more interesting storyline there than just being a foot soldier who started a farm and settled down.
Speaker 2:Who married? A potato farmer Married a potato farmer.
Speaker 2:So yeah, the whole DNA thing started because I found my birth family and I was just making sure they really were my birth family and Steve kept saying to me we have to do your DNA. Well, the only thing I had known growing up as an adopted child was I was Irish and I mean I clung to that. I am Irish and I mean I clung to that I am Irish. St Patrick's Day was my holiday. Right In college I attended the Catholic services, even though I wasn't Catholic because I'm Irish, and so I really fought the DNA thing. And then we did the DNA and I'm like 98% Irish, 1% German.
Speaker 2:I have more than you yeah, more than me and one percent norwegian, which didn't obviously show up in the height at all. But yeah, it's those dna things.
Speaker 1:They're just like shocking yeah, they have nothing but wood elves there in norway I know, and I'm not a wood elf, I'm more of a slender, definitely a hobby it's like I uh in the navy I took several trips to norway, bodo, norway and andoya and uh, and it's like there was like a Miss Universe contest, that the bus stopped there and they all got off and then they just populated. I mean, the women are beautiful there, just beautiful.
Speaker 2:All right, this is a segue, but do you know what one of my worst experiences in life was?
Speaker 1:No. What is your worst experience in life?
Speaker 2:Steve took me to Milan, which should be wonderful, but we went, unbeknownst to us, during Fashion Week.
Speaker 1:Fashion Week.
Speaker 2:So all the women on the subway were like 6'1", 6'2", 6'3". The outfit of the year was a white button man's shirt, uh thigh, high boots and nothing else. And there they are wood elves.
Speaker 1:Yes, there, I am a hobbit it was just demoralizing, and it's very, it's very difficult for a christian man to be in that environment because it's like, it's like this the whole time. You know like, oh, my word, but you know what they when you see them in person? They're, they're, they need to eat something.
Speaker 2:They do need to eat something.
Speaker 1:I'm more of a guy who likes a gal with a little bit of curves. Okay, I'm not. I wasn't a big fan, although it was easy to make fun of.
Speaker 2:Yes, so DNA, be careful.
Speaker 1:Okay, so DNA it's not for the faint of heart. Just excuse me, and you might be surprised if you ever take a DNA test. Surprised if you ever take a DNA test. In the comments I'd like to hear about your, your experience with taking a DNA test and where you're surprised or shocked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right now, if you've made it this far in the broadcast, you obviously like what you're hearing. Do us a favor, hit the like button and subscribe. Hit that bell, the notification bell, because we put out a lot of really great content and you don't want to miss any of it and we'd love to have you on board. Help us out on this end by subscribing and then also share this episode with your friends. So like, subscribe, share there we go, you know, you wanna.
Speaker 1:You know you wanna All right. Now let's move on to one of our final segments, but not the final segment. This is the adulting boss tip of the day.
Speaker 2:Meg. Okay, so you're going to thank me for this one, because most of you growing up in your parents' home, you just went to the refrigerator and you pulled out food. You pulled out ranch dressing, you pulled out eggs and you ate them and you were safe and secure, unless your mom was like cray-cray and like living on the edge. So here's your adulting tip of the day Learn to check expiration dates. You'll thank me. You seriously. You got to take them seriously because you could end up in the hospital and if you've ever had bad milk, you know what I'm talking about. It goes in, it goes out, it's bad, but everything has an expiration date. Adults, learn to read the expiration date, do it.
Speaker 1:I had food poisoning recently. You don't want to hear the details about that, but it is nasty and you don't want to go through it. And it wasn't because of an expiration date. But I would have felt even worse had it been something that I could have prevented by just looking at the date on the back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right.
Speaker 1:So again, that's a good one, because, man you'll, you'll be praying to jesus you will, but you'll be thanking me if you don't and you'll be learning to look at the expiration dates megan, because when something goes bad, it's not a pleasant experience okay hey, we have something new this this session all right.
Speaker 1:So, uh, now we're going to segue to our next short segment, which is Ask Captain Steve. And I am Captain Steve, I captain the largest airplane of the largest airline in the world and I love flying my little airplane and taking 280 to 300 of my favorite friends all over the world and dropping them off and picking up 300 more and bringing them back. And the topic for Ask Captain Steve today and this is in the world of adulting is this how do you dress for air travel? How do you dress for air travel? I've seen a lot of people that have a lot of different approaches to dressing for the airplane. I've seen people some people get all dressed up still to this day.
Speaker 2:That used to be an old-fashioned thing.
Speaker 1:People would get all dressed up. To this day, that used to be an old-fashioned thing. People would get all dressed up. I've seen dressed up people. Uh, mostly people dress casually, but here's what I see the most of. I see people that show up and they're kind of like in their pajamas and I'm not.
Speaker 1:This is not an indictment on you. Ought to dress up or be more business casual when you're in the airplane. I'm going to approach this from a safety point of view. You want to have comfortable shoes on your feet, so most people wear flip-flops, they wear sandals, they wear some inappropriate shoe for the airplane and they're not thinking for a minute that they might have to get out of that airplane in a hurry. So, folks, what I'm going to share with you next might just save your life. Now, look, none of us want to be involved in an airplane crash or an airplane going off a runway or anything like that. It would be a horrible circumstance in the extreme, but a lot of people over the years have been involved in those situations and the ones that survived were the ones that were prepared to get out of the airplane. So I'm going to tell you to do this.
Speaker 1:Wear something that is loose-fitting, maybe cotton, right. Why cotton? Because cotton will burn but it won't adhere to your skin. If you wear polyester or nylon, those things will adhere to your skin. Wear something that covers you. Wear long sleeves, wear long pants. Don't just wear shorts on the airplane and, for God's sake, please put on some sort of shoe that you can use to protect your feet and get out of the airplane. Sneakers, lace up shoes, something that's not going to come off, because if the airplane has rolled off the runway, maybe it's rolled on its side and there's fire and there's smoke and you're trying to get out. You might have to run through fire and jagged metal and gasoline and those sort of things to get to safety. Wear something on your shoe that's going to protect your foot. It's going to bear up under some difficulty perhaps in getting out. Get rid of those flip-flops. Get rid of those sandals. I know they're comfortable, but it's a wrong thing to wear on an airplane. It may just save your life. So there's your ask, captain steve tip of the day.
Speaker 2:That's important to know and I might have just saved your life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, so next time you fly it can be comfortable, but make sure it's something that you're thinking hey, if I gotta get out of this airplane in a hurry, this is the right outfit, think smart think, think smart when you get on an airplane.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Well, that pretty much does it for this episode of Death by Adulting. Next time we're going to share with you the five sure ways to ruin good sex. You don't want to miss that episode. The five good ways to ruin good sex.
Speaker 2:That's a little tongue-in-cheek. Okay, can't wait to miss that episode. The five good ways to ruin good sex that's a little tongue in cheek. Can't wait to get there, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, megan, get us out of here.
Speaker 2:Okay, this has been death by adulting. Remember, as an adult, what doesn't kill you.
Speaker 1:Just makes you tired. Now, when I was younger,